manuelg comments on Rationality Quotes 1 - Less Wrong

9 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 16 January 2008 07:41AM

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Comment author: manuelg 16 January 2008 07:18:28PM 0 points [-]

> It appears to be a quite general principle that, whenever there is a randomized way of doing something, then there is a nonrandomized way that delivers better performance but requires more thought.

If I was a casino owner, I would not purchase a non-randomized slot-machine or a non-randomized roulette wheel. (I _might_ if I was running an underground gaming room.)

Two uses of randomness:

* Have to express a sequence, and need that sequence to have _minimal_ information content about inner state.

* Don't want to be doomed by history, always want maintain a tiny chance of success.

What other uses am I missing?