No, a serious question. I was referring to the discussion starting from the top-level comment here (it’s more of praise’s position—my mistake for confusing this—it’s unclear whether you agree).
“Who precommits first wins” means that if one party can make the other party learn about its precommitment before the other party can commit the first party wins. Not because commitment has magical powers that vary with time, but because learning about the precommitment makes making an exception in just this one case “rational” (if it’s not “rational” to you you already had implicitly precommmitted).
Yes, this (general spin of your argument, not particular point) was my position at one time as well, until I realized that all rational decision-making has to consist of such “implicit precommitments”, which robs the word of nontriviality.
Using the word precommitment makes it easier to talk about these things (unless you find yourself in an argument like this) and finding a reason to treat just this one case as an exception can genuinely be in the best interest of a particular instance of you that already finds itself in that exception (this is more obvious with time travel scenarios than with game theoretic scenarios), even though overall eliminating such exceptions is in your interest (since it will reduce the probability of the circumstances of these would be exceptions arising in the first place).
“Who precommits first wins” means that if one party can make the other party learn about it’s precommitment before the other party can commit the first party wins.
I don’t agree. Not because I think you are believing anything crazy. I disagree with what is rational for the second person to do. I say that anything an agent can do by precommiting to an action it can also do just because it is the rational thing to do. Basically, any time you are in a situation where you think “I wish I could go back in time and change my source code that right now I would be precommitted to doing X” just do X. It’s a bit counter-intuitive but it seems to give you the right answer. In this case the Baron will just not choose to precommit to defection because he knows that will not work due to the ‘if I could time travel...” policy that he reads in your source code. It’s kind of like ‘free precommitment’!
ETA: The word ‘rational’ was quoted, distancing FAWS own belief from a possible belief that some other people may call “rational”. So I do agree. :)
I thought it was obvious that I have exactly the same opinion you voice in this post? After all I used quotes for rational and mentioned that considering this not rational is equivalent to an implicit precommitment. And I thought that It’s obvious that I already have an implicit precommitment through the sort of mechanism you describe from my other posts.
Pardon me, I did not notice the quotes you placed around “rational”. I was surprised by what seemed to me to be a false claim because your other posts did suggest to me that you ‘get it’. Oversights like that are my cue to sleep!
learning about the precommitment makes making an exception in just this one case “rational”
If you allow precommitments that are strategies, that react to what you learn (e.g. about other precommitments), you won’t need any exceptions. You’d only have “blank” areas where you haven’t yet decided your strategy.
Have I ever said anything else? I believe I mentioned agents that come into existence precommitted, and my very first post in this thread mentioned such a fully general, indistiguishable-from-strategy precommmitment. The case I described is the one where “precommitted first” makes sense. Which is also the sort of case in the original post. Obviously the precise timing of a fully general precommitment before the actors even learn about each other doesn’t matter.
Agreed. (I assume by non-general precommitments—timing of which matters—you refer to specific nonconditional strategies that don’t take into account anything—obviously you won’t want to make such a precommitment too early, or too late. I still think it’s a misleading concept, as it suggests that precommitment imposes additional limitation on one’s actions, while as you agree it doesn’t when it isn’t rational—that is when you’ve made a “general precommitment” to avoid that.)
(I assume by non-general precommitments—timing of which matters—you refer to specific nonconditional strategies that don’t take into account anything
I meant things like “I commit to one-box in Newcomb’s problem” or “I commit not to respond to Baron Chastity’s blackmail”, specific precommitments you can only make after anticipating that situation. As a human it seems to be a good idea to make such a specific precommitment in addition to the general precommitment for the psychological effect (this is also more obvious in time travel scenarios), so I disagree that this is a misleading concept.
Why should rational agents deliberately sabotage their ability to understand humans? Merely having a concept of something doesn’t imply applying it to yourself. Not that I even see any noticeable harm in a rational agent applying the concept of a specific precommitment to itself. It might be useful for e. g. modeling itself in hypothesis testing.
No, a serious question. I was referring to the discussion starting from the top-level comment here (it’s more of praise’s position—my mistake for confusing this—it’s unclear whether you agree).
“Who precommits first wins” means that if one party can make the other party learn about its precommitment before the other party can commit the first party wins. Not because commitment has magical powers that vary with time, but because learning about the precommitment makes making an exception in just this one case “rational” (if it’s not “rational” to you you already had implicitly precommmitted).
Yes, this (general spin of your argument, not particular point) was my position at one time as well, until I realized that all rational decision-making has to consist of such “implicit precommitments”, which robs the word of nontriviality.
Using the word precommitment makes it easier to talk about these things (unless you find yourself in an argument like this) and finding a reason to treat just this one case as an exception can genuinely be in the best interest of a particular instance of you that already finds itself in that exception (this is more obvious with time travel scenarios than with game theoretic scenarios), even though overall eliminating such exceptions is in your interest (since it will reduce the probability of the circumstances of these would be exceptions arising in the first place).
I don’t agree. Not because I think you are believing anything crazy. I disagree with what is rational for the second person to do. I say that anything an agent can do by precommiting to an action it can also do just because it is the rational thing to do. Basically, any time you are in a situation where you think “I wish I could go back in time and change my source code that right now I would be precommitted to doing X” just do X. It’s a bit counter-intuitive but it seems to give you the right answer. In this case the Baron will just not choose to precommit to defection because he knows that will not work due to the ‘if I could time travel...” policy that he reads in your source code. It’s kind of like ‘free precommitment’!
ETA: The word ‘rational’ was quoted, distancing FAWS own belief from a possible belief that some other people may call “rational”. So I do agree. :)
I thought it was obvious that I have exactly the same opinion you voice in this post? After all I used quotes for rational and mentioned that considering this not rational is equivalent to an implicit precommitment. And I thought that It’s obvious that I already have an implicit precommitment through the sort of mechanism you describe from my other posts.
Pardon me, I did not notice the quotes you placed around “rational”. I was surprised by what seemed to me to be a false claim because your other posts did suggest to me that you ‘get it’. Oversights like that are my cue to sleep!
If you allow precommitments that are strategies, that react to what you learn (e.g. about other precommitments), you won’t need any exceptions. You’d only have “blank” areas where you haven’t yet decided your strategy.
Have I ever said anything else? I believe I mentioned agents that come into existence precommitted, and my very first post in this thread mentioned such a fully general, indistiguishable-from-strategy precommmitment. The case I described is the one where “precommitted first” makes sense. Which is also the sort of case in the original post. Obviously the precise timing of a fully general precommitment before the actors even learn about each other doesn’t matter.
Agreed. (I assume by non-general precommitments—timing of which matters—you refer to specific nonconditional strategies that don’t take into account anything—obviously you won’t want to make such a precommitment too early, or too late. I still think it’s a misleading concept, as it suggests that precommitment imposes additional limitation on one’s actions, while as you agree it doesn’t when it isn’t rational—that is when you’ve made a “general precommitment” to avoid that.)
I meant things like “I commit to one-box in Newcomb’s problem” or “I commit not to respond to Baron Chastity’s blackmail”, specific precommitments you can only make after anticipating that situation. As a human it seems to be a good idea to make such a specific precommitment in addition to the general precommitment for the psychological effect (this is also more obvious in time travel scenarios), so I disagree that this is a misleading concept.
For humans, certainty it’s a useful concept. For rational agents, exceptions overwhelm.
Why should rational agents deliberately sabotage their ability to understand humans? Merely having a concept of something doesn’t imply applying it to yourself. Not that I even see any noticeable harm in a rational agent applying the concept of a specific precommitment to itself. It might be useful for e. g. modeling itself in hypothesis testing.
Obviously.