If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.
Notes for future OT posters:
1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.
2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)
3. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.
4. Unflag the two options "Notify me of new top level comments on this article" and "
But what does the code for that look like. It looks like maximize(# of paperclips in world), but how does it determine (# of paperclips in world)? You just said it has a model. But how can it distinguish between real input that leads to the perception of paperclips and fake input that leads to the perception of paperclips?
Well, if the acronym "POMDP" didn't make any sense, I think we should start with a simpler example, like a chessboard.
Suppose we want to write a chess-playing AI that gets its input from a camera looking at the chessboard. And for some reason, we give it a button that replaces the video feed with a picture of the board in a winning position.
Inside the program, the AI knows about the rules of chess, and has some heuristics for how it expects the opponent to play. Then it represents the external chessboard with some data array. Finally, it has some... (read more)