J_Thomas2 comments on Anthropomorphic Optimism - Less Wrong

25 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 August 2008 08:17PM

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Comment author: J_Thomas2 05 August 2008 04:03:41PM 1 point [-]

My point was that in an adversarial situation, you should assume your opponent will always make perfect choices. Then their mistakes are to your advantage. If you're ready for optimal thrashings, random thrashings will be easier.

It isn't that simple. When their perfect choice mean you lose, then you might as well hope they make mistakes. Don't plan for the worst that can happen, plan for the worst that can happen which you can still overcome.

One possible mistake they can make is to just be slow. If you can hit them hard before they can react, you might hurt them enough to get a significant advantage. Then if you keep hitting them hard and fast they might reach the point they're trying to defend against the worst you can do. While they are trying to prepare for the worst attack you can make, you hit them hard with the second-worst attack that they aren't prepared for. Then when they try to defend against whatever they think you'll do next, you do something else bad. It's really ideal when you can get your enemy into that stance.

Of course it's even better when you can persuade them not to be your enemy in the first place. If you coudl do that reliably then you would do very well. But it's hard to do that every time. The enemy gets a vote.