It’s true that people just “make decisions”, and don’t have access to their source code. They can, however lift decisions to the conscious level and decide to follow an algorithm.
Do you have any problem with economists convincing people that it’s in their best interest to figure out what the Nash equilibrium is and play that? They are arguing for an algorithm, and people can indeed decide to “follow the algorithm” rather than “just picking their gut choice”, can’t they? At least, when they have explicit payoffs available, etc.
Really, TDT is just one specific example that if you know your opponents decision procedure, you can do better than not knowing[1]. In a one-shot PD against an unknown, the best I can do really is defensively playing Defect. This is true even if I know what move he’ll make. On the other hand, If I don’t know his move, but know that he will make the same move as I, whether because he’s copying me, or we’re both “implementing the same algorithm”, we can effectively together force “cooperate”.
Now, “implementing the same algorithm” is actually a somewhat vague idea. I listed several ways that even computer implementations couldn’t guarantee enough symmetry. People are far worse, of course. A conscious decision to do what the algorithm says will often have people backing out because it’s saying to do something crazy. We can’t implement TDT, only approximate it. Are the approximations good enough to be useful? I find that idea implausible.
If you’re a human, why would you adopt TDT?
I wouldn’t because IMHO, it won’t ever be useful to me. I can’t trust that the situations are actually symmetric enough. To uploads? Maybe. To AIs who can examine and certify each others source code? Quite possibly.
EDITTED:
[1]: Okay, it’s a bit more than that, it matters not just when playing clones, but also when you need to know how future versions of you will behave in “omega” situations. I also don’t expect to need to deal with that, though I am a one-boxer.
It’s true that people just “make decisions”, and don’t have access to their source code. They can, however lift decisions to the conscious level and decide to follow an algorithm.
Do you have any problem with economists convincing people that it’s in their best interest to figure out what the Nash equilibrium is and play that? They are arguing for an algorithm, and people can indeed decide to “follow the algorithm” rather than “just picking their gut choice”, can’t they? At least, when they have explicit payoffs available, etc.
Really, TDT is just one specific example that if you know your opponents decision procedure, you can do better than not knowing[1]. In a one-shot PD against an unknown, the best I can do really is defensively playing Defect. This is true even if I know what move he’ll make. On the other hand, If I don’t know his move, but know that he will make the same move as I, whether because he’s copying me, or we’re both “implementing the same algorithm”, we can effectively together force “cooperate”.
Now, “implementing the same algorithm” is actually a somewhat vague idea. I listed several ways that even computer implementations couldn’t guarantee enough symmetry. People are far worse, of course. A conscious decision to do what the algorithm says will often have people backing out because it’s saying to do something crazy. We can’t implement TDT, only approximate it. Are the approximations good enough to be useful? I find that idea implausible.
I wouldn’t because IMHO, it won’t ever be useful to me. I can’t trust that the situations are actually symmetric enough. To uploads? Maybe. To AIs who can examine and certify each others source code? Quite possibly.
EDITTED: [1]: Okay, it’s a bit more than that, it matters not just when playing clones, but also when you need to know how future versions of you will behave in “omega” situations. I also don’t expect to need to deal with that, though I am a one-boxer.