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Stuart_Armstrong comments on Creating a satisficer - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 11 March 2015 03:03PM

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Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 08 July 2015 12:27:48PM 0 points [-]

I'm not sure what you mean. Could you give an example?

Comment author: rikisola 08 July 2015 12:44:47PM 0 points [-]

Say M(u-v) suggests killing all humans so that it can make more paperclips. u is the value of a paperclip and v is the value of a human life. M(εu+v) might accept it if εΔu > -Δv, so it seems to me at the end it all depends on the relative value we assign to paperclips and human lives, which seems to be the real problem.

Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 08 July 2015 12:51:57PM 0 points [-]

That's one of the reasons the agents don't know u and v at this point.

Comment author: rikisola 08 July 2015 01:18:25PM 0 points [-]

Thanks for your reply, I had missed the fact that M(εu+v) is also ignorant of what u and v are. In this case is this a general structure of how a satisficer should work, but then when applying it in practice we would need to assign some values to u and v on a case by case basis, or at least to ε, so that M(εu+v) could veto? Or is it the case that M(εu+v) uses an arbitrarily small ε, in which case it is the same as imposing Δv>0?

Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 09 July 2015 09:40:40AM 1 point [-]

I forgot an important part of the setup, which was that u is bounded, not too far away from the present value, which means εΔu > -Δv is unlikely for general v.

Comment author: rikisola 09 July 2015 11:44:10AM 0 points [-]

Ah yep that'll do.