Seems like phrasing it in terms of decision theory only makes the situation more confusing. Why not just state the results in terms of: assuming there are a large number of copies of some algorithm A then there is more utility if A has such and such properties.
This works more generally. Instead of burying ourselves in the confusions of decision theory we can simply state results about what kind of outcomes various algorithms give rise to under various conditions.
>assuming there are a large number of copies of some algorithm A then there is more utility if A has such and such properties.
This is only relevant if this results in a change in algorithm A. eg causal decision theory can know that if it was a UDT agent, then it would have more money in the Newcomb problem, but it won’t change itself because of this (if Omega decided before the agent existed).
Seems like phrasing it in terms of decision theory only makes the situation more confusing. Why not just state the results in terms of: assuming there are a large number of copies of some algorithm A then there is more utility if A has such and such properties.
This works more generally. Instead of burying ourselves in the confusions of decision theory we can simply state results about what kind of outcomes various algorithms give rise to under various conditions.
>assuming there are a large number of copies of some algorithm A then there is more utility if A has such and such properties.
This is only relevant if this results in a change in algorithm A. eg causal decision theory can know that if it was a UDT agent, then it would have more money in the Newcomb problem, but it won’t change itself because of this (if Omega decided before the agent existed).