Decision theory is a term used in mathematical statistics and philosophy. In applied AI terms, a decision theory is the algorithm used by an AI agent to compute what action to take next. The nature of this algorithm is obviously relevant to alignment. That being said, philosophers like to argue among themselves about different decision theories and how they relate to certain paradoxes and limit cases, and they conduct these arguments using a terminology that is entirely disconnected from that being used in most theoretical and applied AI research. Not all AI alignment researchers believe that these philosophical arguments are very relevant to moving forward AI alignment research.
Decision theory is a term used in mathematical statistics and philosophy. In applied AI terms, a decision theory is the algorithm used by an AI agent to compute what action to take next. The nature of this algorithm is obviously relevant to alignment. That being said, philosophers like to argue among themselves about different decision theories and how they relate to certain paradoxes and limit cases, and they conduct these arguments using a terminology that is entirely disconnected from that being used in most theoretical and applied AI research. Not all AI alignment researchers believe that these philosophical arguments are very relevant to moving forward AI alignment research.