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JQuinton comments on Why do theists, undergrads, and Less Wrongers favor one-boxing on Newcomb? - Less Wrong Discussion

15 Post author: CarlShulman 19 June 2013 01:55AM

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Comment author: JQuinton 20 June 2013 03:40:21PM *  7 points [-]

Anecdotally, there are two probability games that convinced me to one-box: The Monty Hall game and playing against the rock-paper-scissors bot at the NY Times.

The RPS bot is a good real world example of how it is theoretically possible to have an AI (or "Omega") who accurately predicts my decisions. The RPS bot predicted my decision about 2 out of 3 times so I don't see any conceptual reason why an even better designed robot/AI would beat me 999/1000 times at RPS. I tried really hard to outsmart the RPS bot and even still I lost more than I won. It was only when I randomized my choices using a hashing algorithm of sorts that I started to win.

The only reason I knew about the RPS game at the NYT was due to participation on Less Wrong, so maybe anecdotes like mine are the reason for the link. I also don't have any emotional attachment to the idea of free will.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 20 June 2013 11:04:25PM -2 points [-]

The RPS bot is a good real world example of how it is theoretically possible to have an AI (or "Omega") who accurately predicts my decisions. The RPS bot predicted my decision about 2 out of 3 times so I don't see any conceptual reason why an even better designed robot/AI would beat me 999/1000 times at RPS.

So, I should take this as evidence that you're a robot whereas I have authentic, unpredictable free will? In 20 rounds just now, I came out slightly ahead (5 wins, 4 losses, 11 ties).

Comment author: Will_Newsome 25 June 2013 08:39:29PM *  1 point [-]

I committed to sharing results beforehand: First twenty versus Veteran mode: +8 -6 =6. Second twenty: +8 -8 =4. I spent about five seconds thinking between moves. I love RPS, I could easily get addicted to this... ETA: I decided to play ten rounds where I thought really hard about it. I got +4 -0 =6. ETA2: Okay, I'll play twenty rounds thinking less than a second per move...: +7 -8 =5.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 25 June 2013 09:04:31AM 0 points [-]

11 ties vs 9 non-ties? How odd.

Comment author: JQuinton 21 June 2013 03:58:29AM 0 points [-]

Yes, because it's impossible for AI to get better than a rudimentary program running on the NYT server.