KatjaGrace comments on Superintelligence 21: Value learning - Less Wrong

7 Post author: KatjaGrace 03 February 2015 02:01AM

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Comment author: KatjaGrace 20 February 2015 07:41:45PM 0 points [-]

That's probably the correct inference, if I understand you. The value learner has priors over what the world is like, and further priors over what is valuable.

The kids and the chimps both already have values, and are trying to learn how to fulfil them.

I don't follow your other points, sorry.

Comment author: diegocaleiro 23 February 2015 05:38:43PM 0 points [-]

The kids and chimps have different priors. Kids assume the experimenter has reasons to be doing the weird non-seemingly goal oriented things he does. Humans alone can entertain fictions. This makes us powerful but also more prone to supersticious behavior (in behaviorist terminology).

If you were expectimaxing over what an agent would do (which is what Dewey suggests a value learner does) you'd end up with behaviors that are seldom useful, because some parts of your behavior would further one goal, and some others, you would not commit to all the behaviors that further the one goal you assign more likelihood to be valuable. Maxing would be find the highest value, ignore all others, expectimaxing would be a mixed hybrid which fails when all or none is relevant.

No doubt this is not my most eloquent thread in history. Sorry, give up on this if you don't understand it.