I can certainly empathize with that statement. And if my opponent is not only dominating in ability but exploiting that advantage to the point where I’m losing just as much by submitting as I would by exacting punishment, then that’s the tipping point where I start hitting back. Of course, I’d attempt retaliatory behavior initially when I was unsure how dominated I was, as well, but once I know that the opponent is just that much better than me, and as long as they’re not abusing that advantage to the point where retaliation becomes cost-effective, then I’d have to concede my opponent’s superiority, grit my teeth, bend over, and take one for the team. Especially with a 1 million human lives per util ratio. With lives at stake, I shut up and multiply.
I meant that as a rational strategy—if my opponent can predict that I’ll cooperate until defected upon, at which point I will “tear off the steering wheel and drink a fifth of vodka,” and start playing defect-only, his optimal play will not involve strategically chosen defections.
I was thrown off by the word “precommit”, which implies a reflectively inconsistent strategy, which is TDT-anathema. On the other hand, rational agents win, so having that strategy does make sense in that case, despite the fact that we might incur negative utility relative to playing submissively if we had to actually carry it out.
The solution, I think, is to be “the type of agent who would be ruthlessly vindictive against opponents who have enough predictive capability to see that I’m this type of agent, and enough strategic capability to accept that this means they gain nothing by defecting against me.” That makes it a reflectively consistent part of a decision theory, by keeping the negative-utility behavior in the realm of the pure counterfactual. As long as you know that having that strategy will effectively deter the other player, I think it can work.
And if not, or if I’ve made an error in some detail of my reasoning of how to make it work, I’m fairly confident at this point that an ideal TDT-agent could find a valid way to address the problem case in a reflectively consistent and strategically sound manner.
I can certainly empathize with that statement. And if my opponent is not only dominating in ability but exploiting that advantage to the point where I’m losing just as much by submitting as I would by exacting punishment, then that’s the tipping point where I start hitting back. Of course, I’d attempt retaliatory behavior initially when I was unsure how dominated I was, as well, but once I know that the opponent is just that much better than me, and as long as they’re not abusing that advantage to the point where retaliation becomes cost-effective, then I’d have to concede my opponent’s superiority, grit my teeth, bend over, and take one for the team. Especially with a 1 million human lives per util ratio. With lives at stake, I shut up and multiply.
I meant that as a rational strategy—if my opponent can predict that I’ll cooperate until defected upon, at which point I will “tear off the steering wheel and drink a fifth of vodka,” and start playing defect-only, his optimal play will not involve strategically chosen defections.
You know, you’re right.
I was thrown off by the word “precommit”, which implies a reflectively inconsistent strategy, which is TDT-anathema. On the other hand, rational agents win, so having that strategy does make sense in that case, despite the fact that we might incur negative utility relative to playing submissively if we had to actually carry it out.
The solution, I think, is to be “the type of agent who would be ruthlessly vindictive against opponents who have enough predictive capability to see that I’m this type of agent, and enough strategic capability to accept that this means they gain nothing by defecting against me.” That makes it a reflectively consistent part of a decision theory, by keeping the negative-utility behavior in the realm of the pure counterfactual. As long as you know that having that strategy will effectively deter the other player, I think it can work.
And if not, or if I’ve made an error in some detail of my reasoning of how to make it work, I’m fairly confident at this point that an ideal TDT-agent could find a valid way to address the problem case in a reflectively consistent and strategically sound manner.