“Adopt FDT” is probably too strong as a rephrasing; by “accept some flavor of FDT as true”, I intended to include anyone who one-boxes and / or cooperates in the prisoner’s dilemma because they disagree with you and academic-only philosophers on this:
One is called causal decision theory (CDT). I’m trying to be impartial, so I won’t tell you that it’s (probably) the correct view.
Robert Wiblin: So you think it’s the case that when it comes to programming an AI, there’s actually a lot of agreement on what kind of decision theory it should be using in practice. Or at least, people agree that it needn’t be causal decision theory, even though philosophers think in some more fundamental sense causal decision theory is the right decision theory.
Paul Christiano: I think that’s right. I don’t know exactly what… I think philosophers don’t think that much about that question. But I think it’s not a tenable position, and if you really got into an argument with philosophers it wouldn’t be a tenable position that you should program your AI to use causal decision theory.
Of course there’s still a bunch of intra-rationalist and AI researcher disagreement on the specifics of FDT / UDT, e.g. a bunch of them probably disagree specifically because of updatelessness / EDT-with-tickle reasons, which are (debatably) not just “some flavor of FDT” as I said above.
IDK who exactly the most prominent people who have published specific thoughts on this are, but as a starting point the MacAskill post from 2019 that you cited got a bunch of substantive replies. I didn’t check all of their credentials / accomplishments and what they’re up to these days, but I suspect the real locus of our disagreement is more about the bounds of who qualifies as a philosopher / expert. I think “academic philosophy credentials” are not a good proxy for legible philosophy expertise (see sibling reply for more).
A big chunk of philosophers one-box. These people generally adopt evidential decision theory. They also cooperate in PD with twin. So no, FDT isn’t just the same as one boxing. If it was, then all EDTers would be FDTers.
I don’t think you should program an AI to follow CDT. This is because decision theories are theories of which actions are rational, not the dispositions that you want to have. So I agree with Christiano—this obviously can’t be the criterion for being a functional decision theorist.
Here’s one test: there is not a single person, to the best of my knowledge, anywhere in the world who adopts FDT and has a Ph.D in philosophy. This fact is surprising if it’s the right view.
Here’s one test: there is not a single person, to the best of my knowledge, anywhere in the world who adopts FDT and has a Ph.D in philosophy. This fact is surprising if it’s the right view.
False:
With that said I was a CDTer who became an FDTer and also a rationalist who became an empiricist so maybe it’s my job to bring balance to the force. (source)
Tyler holds a PhD in analytic philosophy and democratic theory from Rutgers University (source)
It’s true! The same way relativity is wrong but less wrong than newtonian physics. Are you going to somehow try to spin this into therefore saying your original statement was right? Come on man.
Who are the most accomplished and high impact philosophers who work in industry and adopt FDT?
“Adopt FDT” is probably too strong as a rephrasing; by “accept some flavor of FDT as true”, I intended to include anyone who one-boxes and / or cooperates in the prisoner’s dilemma because they disagree with you and academic-only philosophers on this:
Which is definitely a minority view among rationalists, and (I am pretty confident) a minority view among researchers and philosophers at frontier AI labs and similar. cf. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/n6wajkE3Tpfn6sd5j/christiano-decision-theory-excerpt, particularly:
Of course there’s still a bunch of intra-rationalist and AI researcher disagreement on the specifics of FDT / UDT, e.g. a bunch of them probably disagree specifically because of updatelessness / EDT-with-tickle reasons, which are (debatably) not just “some flavor of FDT” as I said above.
IDK who exactly the most prominent people who have published specific thoughts on this are, but as a starting point the MacAskill post from 2019 that you cited got a bunch of substantive replies. I didn’t check all of their credentials / accomplishments and what they’re up to these days, but I suspect the real locus of our disagreement is more about the bounds of who qualifies as a philosopher / expert. I think “academic philosophy credentials” are not a good proxy for legible philosophy expertise (see sibling reply for more).
A big chunk of philosophers one-box. These people generally adopt evidential decision theory. They also cooperate in PD with twin. So no, FDT isn’t just the same as one boxing. If it was, then all EDTers would be FDTers.
I don’t think you should program an AI to follow CDT. This is because decision theories are theories of which actions are rational, not the dispositions that you want to have. So I agree with Christiano—this obviously can’t be the criterion for being a functional decision theorist.
Here’s one test: there is not a single person, to the best of my knowledge, anywhere in the world who adopts FDT and has a Ph.D in philosophy. This fact is surprising if it’s the right view.
False:
You are correct, thanks for the correction.Edit: wait actually this is wrong, Tyler said in dms “Well FDT is wrong but less wrong than CDT.”
Tyler said in dms “Well FDT is wrong but less wrong than CDT.”
It’s true! The same way relativity is wrong but less wrong than newtonian physics. Are you going to somehow try to spin this into therefore saying your original statement was right? Come on man.