I’m in favor of this reframe, and it gels well with its real world applications. In fact, Zvi wrote a post a long long time ago for which commitment theory would be a more convincing name than decision theory:
Although I would actually make a distinction here—“negotiates well with similar agents” is just about your counterfactuals, so commitment theory / updatelessness is not necessary for it. e.g. updateful CDT with logical counterfactuals and updateful EDT both are able to handle that. So you can just use normal academic EDT.
Negotiating with your future/past self, that’s where it gets thorny. That’s what you need commitment theory / updatelessness for.
I’m in favor of this reframe, and it gels well with its real world applications. In fact, Zvi wrote a post a long long time ago for which commitment theory would be a more convincing name than decision theory:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/scwoBEju75C45W5n3/how-i-lost-100-pounds-using-tdt
Centralizing the “negotiates well with similar agents / future selves” framing is actually pretty intuitive in certain everyday situations!
Thanks a lot Rachel!
That Zvi post is a classic, thanks for reminding me of it.
Although I would actually make a distinction here—“negotiates well with similar agents” is just about your counterfactuals, so commitment theory / updatelessness is not necessary for it. e.g. updateful CDT with logical counterfactuals and updateful EDT both are able to handle that. So you can just use normal academic EDT.
Negotiating with your future/past self, that’s where it gets thorny. That’s what you need commitment theory / updatelessness for.