Manfred comments on Putting in the Numbers - Less Wrong

8 Post author: Manfred 30 January 2014 06:41AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (32)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: christopherj 22 February 2014 07:01:49PM *  0 points [-]

The robot doesn't care about your irrelevant technicality, it cares about maximum entropy. e^0 is exponential, but it is not the maximum entropy distribution with a given mean. In this case, it is Pr(X=xk) = C*r^(xk) for k = 1,2,3,4 where the positive constants C and r can be determined by the requirements that the sum of all the probabilities must be 1 and the expected value must be 2.5.

Just because I didn't actually write the formula doesn't mean it doesn't exist or you can replace it with any formula you like. So if the robot works as described, this is what the robot will update its expected probabilities to upon learning that the mean is 2.5, and not 2.5*e^0 because it would be convenient for you.

This is why many of us are terrified of the Singularity, because the author of a program seldom anticipates its actual result. What's even more terrifying is that this should have been obvious to you, as you gave an example as a strength of your idea of when the mean was 3.0. Why are you upset that I pointed out the consequences when the mean was 2.5? Instead of acknowledging the fact, you entirely forget what you told your robot to do and blurt out a misleading technicality?

Comment author: Manfred 22 February 2014 07:41:02PM 0 points [-]

Pr(X=xk) = C*r^(xk) for k = 1,2,3,4 where the positive constants C and r can be determined by the requirements that the sum of all the probabilities must be 1 and the expected value must be 2.5.

r^x = e^kx, where e^k=r. So. Would you like to wager whether r=1?