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Lumifer comments on Open thread for December 9 - 16, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: NancyLebovitz 09 December 2013 04:35PM

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Comment author: Lumifer 10 December 2013 08:00:40PM 2 points [-]

You seem to be talking about forecasting human behavior and giving advice to humans about how to behave.

That, of course, depends on human values. But that is related to game theory in the same way engineering is related to mathematics. If you are building a bridge you need to know the properties of materials you're building it out of. Doesn't change the equations, though.

Comment author: James_Miller 10 December 2013 08:35:43PM 3 points [-]

You know that a race of aliens is rational. Do you need to know more about their values to predict how they will build bridges? Yes. Do you need to know more about their values to predict how they will play games? Yes.

Game theory is (basically) the study of how rational people behave. Unfortunately, there will always exist relatively simple games for which you can not use the tools of game theory to determine how players will behave.

Comment author: Lumifer 10 December 2013 08:44:24PM 3 points [-]

Game theory is (basically) the study of how rational people behave.

Ah. We have a terminology difference. I defined my understanding of game theory a bit upthread and it's not about people at all. For example, consider software agents operating in a network with distributed resources and untrusted counterparties.