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gwern comments on Hope Function - Less Wrong Discussion

22 Post author: gwern 01 July 2012 03:40PM

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Comment author: gwern 02 July 2012 01:38:48AM 1 point [-]

One has to wonder at the ethics of such an experiment - when you know tons of the subjects won't get even close to the right answer and thus would accept unfair bets!

Comment author: shminux 02 July 2012 01:50:32AM 2 points [-]

You can certainly set it up in an ethical way. For example, tell the subject that they have to find something as fast as they can. It could be a set of drawers and a large bin nearby. One could deduce their (admittedly sunk-cost biased) intuitive probabilities from where they start looking and when/whether they switch from looking in the drawers to the bin. As described, this would not be easy or clean, but you can certainly modify the experiment to achieve both.

Comment author: jsalvatier 02 July 2012 04:44:15AM 0 points [-]

Can't you just pay them more for doing the experiment?

Comment author: gwern 02 July 2012 04:53:55AM 0 points [-]

Then they might not have enough skin at stake? Or so one could argue.