Re: [sl4] Convergence of Expected Utilities with Algorithmic Probability Distributions - uh?

From: Eliezer Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Sun Dec 07 2008 - 16:12:52 MST


On Sun, Dec 7, 2008 at 11:50 AM, Peter de Blanc <peter@spaceandgames.com> wrote:
>
> So to consider a slightly simpler case than in the paper, suppose p and U
> were both computable functions. p is a function of an _index_ of a program,
> whereas U is a function of the _output_ of the program. Since the map from
> programs to outputs is not a total computable function, it should seem
> conceivable that U(program_n(0)) could grow more quickly than 1/p(n),
> because the former is not a total function in n but the latter is.

Ah, I had a similar question when reading the paper. I haven't gone
through it in depth, but need to do so at some point. From this I
suspect that my reply may be some variant of, "If you know the output,
you can take the output into account as information in assessing the
probability that you exert unique control over that universe rather
than being within that universe; if you don't know the output, your
utility function can't be run over it either."

-- 
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence


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