BOX A ONLY: 8

BOTH BOXES: 3

----------------------------------

Setup: You walk into a room. There are two boxes.

Box A (opaque) — contains either $1,000,000 or $0.

Box B (transparent) — contains $1,000 (you can see this).

A highly reliable, God-Like AI Predictor (almost always right) has already predicted, before you walked into the room, whether you will take only Box A or both boxes. Its prediction includes the assumption that you will be aware of the rules of the game and of it making this prediction.

If the Predictor predicted you will take only Box A, they put $1,000,000 in Box A.

If the Predictor predicted you will take both boxes, they put $0 in Box A.

Now the boxes are in front of you. You must choose right now, and your choice does not affect the Predictor anymore (the prediction and the filling already happened).

--------------------------------

Do you take only Box A (hoping for $1,000,000), or do you take both Box A and Box B (guaranteeing the $1,000 but possibly losing the million, but with a higher maximum payoff of $1,001,000)? Why?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49731649)

what is your choice

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49731826)

id take both. the predictor would predict any rational person would take both, so it wouldn't matter, but its costless to see if it made an error since it's almost always right.

unless the predictor is in the first leg too (the predictor is predicited which move id take with a predictor). now im in a game of golden balls with essentially an ai clone. in which case id go with A, because $1000 is inconsequential and i think theres a greater than 1:1000 chance the predictor would think id choose that, so it's positive EV.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49731834)

if the predictor is predicting what'd id do in isolation, then ill take both

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49731865)

what exact same situation? isolation from what? huh?

the predictor is predicting (with 99.99999%+ accuracy) which choice you will make based on the rules of the game laid out in op. not sure if this helps or not

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49731909)

then i misred the question as "do you take A or B" instead of "do you take A or both?" under my A or B reading, the 100% correct answer would be B, and i thought you were asking this to see how many people would choose incorrectly because $1k is insignificant

if i had read your question correctly the context clue would have resolved the ambiguity. it was a rc fail on my part.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49731956)

although the way you are thinking about this is on the right track imo

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49731975)

i would choose A because $1k is inconsequential. im truly engaging in this hypo by *not* thinking of it further than that. if i choose A based on my gut, legitimately, not trying to game the predictor as it has already put/not put the money in A, then there's at least a chance the predictor would have predicted that (and under your hypo it *did* do that, because it was legitimately my first instinct.)

its kinda like quantum mechanics. the longer i think about it, the more likely i am to reach an optimal answer, which could be both. thus my actions right now do impact what the predictor has already done.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732051)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49731790)

not worth my time

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732003)

in that situation i only take b

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732026)

The rational choice for someone (a) who can think through the excercise and (b) for whom $1,000 is nbd is to take only Box A and hope the AI sees that you would see it that way.

The answer might change if the AI is predicting for a random, average person, who is more likely to take both boxes.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732114)

i thought about increasing the amount from $1000 but this is a famous philosophical problem so i didn't want to tweak it

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732144)

nm realized you probably want to know the name and background of it, i'll poast it later

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732188)

woah i was right about quantum retrocausality

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732203)

most poasters are very insecure about ever being wrong online. only like 15 people participated in my election guessing game where i offered a $50 giftcard. yet hundreds will make vague, non-falsiable "predictions."

from the face of the hypo most can tell its somewhat complicated and that there might be an objectively correct answer. and they'd rather not risk damage to their e-rep.

it's a lawyer forum, no suprise many are risk adverse bothboxmos

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732273)

(this is completely cr btw lmao all lawyers are the fucking same in this way)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732287)

better call saul is the best legal show ever because it does a great job portraying this reality.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732312)

you can look up the problem to see what i mean

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732231)

the og hypo is from 1969, goy superstar should have made it $10m and $10k so that it's the same hypo adjusted for inflation.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732242)

this problem is more about exploring and explaining one's rationale (including assumptions) for one's choice than it is about the "correctness" of the choice itself

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732299)

let's say i offered to bet your entire net worth on something that was 51% in your favor paying even money. even though you have positive ev, you shouldn't do this, because the real cost of you losing everything isnt worth you having 2x. but if i offered you the same deal for $10, you would do it infinite times.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732331)

in your hypo, it is 100% clear, without any doubt whatsoever, that we would be risking our entire net worth if we made the bet

in the hypo in the OP, the *entire question* is whether or not one is actually "risking" anything if one chooses to take two boxes rather than just Box A. that is what it's all about

that is why it's important to fully engage with the hypo in the OP. because otherwise you're not giving a meaningful answer to the question

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732366)

"it's entirely rational to act how you want the AI to believe you would act in this scenario (therefore i choose only Box A)"

here you are filling in those assumptions. good. this is a totally fine answer. naturally though, a two-boxer is going to point out: "but the Predictor's decision has already been made. you lose nothing by taking the other box too; you just get a free +$1000 EV"

and then the thought experiment continues from here, because the real question is: under what assumptions/conditions *would* you actually be Risking the $1,000,0000 by taking both boxes?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732406)

lets say im certain A is empty and twobox is the best move, but box B has a penny. i know im human and fallible, so even though im certain, id hedge on solipism because its almost costless. or reverse it and have box B have $999k. now, even if im nearly certain box A is full, the guaranteed money is too much to pass up.

the amount in the boxes, the deciders situation, and their confidence in their decision is all going to factor in.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732419)

it's a question pertaining to causality. if someone is caught up in thinking about the amounts of money involved, they are not thinking about the question hard enough, or are possibly just not intelligent enough to fully grasp the hypo. but i am pretty sure that everyone on this board is plenty smart enough to understand the depth of the hypo. it just takes some thinking, that's all

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732454)

still, a Smart Person should pretty easily recognize what the hypo is all about. it's just that answering it becomes very complex the more you get into it. seeing the dollar numbers and then immediately stopping there is - at the risk of Judging others - not what Smart People do imho

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732479)

if i wanted you to engage with something id frame it around something you actually care about. like when i tried to illustrate openmindedness to consuela. although that has its own pitfalls because sometimes people are so emotionally tethered to something they cant tolerate it being questioned. or they miss the point completely, like how consuela keeps saying im a bootlicking vaxxcuck.

ime smart people are even more susceptible to this than midwits. smart people tend to have a lot of ego about their intelligence and correctedness. e.g. risk adverse law fags terrified to risk being wrong even anonymously online about dumb shit.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732529)

i had a lol school prof who wrote articles about how judges often make illogical decisions, and to prove this he sent out a hypo like this with a correct answer that anyone could figure out, but most peoples gut reaction would be wrong. of course, he passed it out at some bar event where most people took two seconds and checked a box and moved on. this was published as if they had sat down and thought about it with the same intensity they would a matter before them!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732630)

It's also totally unclear why someone would take both boxes or not, and if this has any effect on the chance the computer decides they were worthy or not of leaving the million.

The hypo is totally broken because it comes down to whether or not we trust the decision making ability of a computer, which may or may not be right or wrong, and can't even be proven to be so until after you've taken a box or boxes. The whole hypo suffers from a lack of clarity. Is it just a sword in a stone situation where we're just hoping the robot deems us worthy? I fail to see why there's any point in guessing what a robot thinks of us. Wouldn't it then follow that the optimal strategy would be to appeal to the robot's inner sense of goodness enough to leave the million in the first box? That's what we're left with ultimately, and, perhaps, unfortunately.

If you're insinuating that the best course is to take Box B, prove the computer right about the goodness of humanity so that it must leave the million, then build a time machine and go back in time to take the first box, then I think you could have articulated that a lot better.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732292)

Right so it's a shitty hypo and it depends on interpretation to arrive at the optimal strategy.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732436)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_problem

the real meat of the problem is getting into causality and whether or not "free will" is a real thing, and under what conditions it is/could be real

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49732611)

The point though, is that there is no way for the predictor to "almost always" reach the correct decision unless it is able to analyze the specific decisionmaker and replicate their thought process with a high degree of accuracy. Being correct almost always would involve correctly predicting how a wide range of intellects would approach the problem.

So, there is no probabilistic "correct" answer between one box and two boxes under this hypothetical. The actual analysis of the choice itself is a red herring. The nature of the predictive device and how it works is the most important part of the hypo, and my interpretation is that you maximize your outcome by making whatever choice is consistent with your internal reasoning process. Or alternatively, if the predictor is even able to predict that you might disregard your internal reasoning and make the opposite choice, then it's simply impossible to lose the hypo.

Either way, the choice is irrelevant. However, the hypo is somewhat incomplete because it does not describe the circumstances under which the predictor will be inaccurate, which could entirely change the problem.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49733205)

OP adds in the term "godlike" to the classic problem, which was the source of my assumption about how the box might work, but it doesn't appear to be part of the classic problem, which is more wide open. What is interesting though is that it seems like even many of the lines of reasoning that correctly focus on the nature of the predictor are still getting caught up trying to prove whether one box or two boxes is "correct."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49733294)

that's the whole point of the problem

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49733305)

-----------------

In his 1969 article, Nozick noted that "To almost everyone, it is perfectly clear and obvious what should be done. The difficulty is that these people seem to divide almost evenly on the problem, with large numbers thinking that the opposing half is just being silly."[1][4] The problem continues to divide philosophers today.[9][10] In a 2020 survey, a modest plurality of professional philosophers chose to take both boxes (39.0% versus 31.2%).

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49733320)

the reason why people are split down the middle about their answer to this problem is that people make different instinctive assumptions about the predictor. it's interesting to explore why this is. that is the significance of the problem

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49733333)

The reason this problem is so popular is it's intentionally vague. You can claim it's interesting to see how much people assume about a predictor whose accuracy is unknowable, or you could take a much more scientific approach and actually decide on the parameters vs make people guess what they are. If you think you can draw meaningful inferences based on how people make their inferences, based on assumptions about an unknowable variable, then I would say you haven't learned very much at all.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49733353)

that is definitely an important assumption that must be made as part of the problem

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49733706)

--------------

In the standard version of Newcomb's problem, two boxes are designated A and B. The player is given a choice between taking only box B or taking both boxes A and B. The player knows the following:[4]

Box A is transparent, or open, and always contains a visible $1,000.

Box B is opaque, or closed, and its content has already been set by the predictor:

If the predictor has predicted that the player will take both boxes A and B, then box B contains nothing.

If the predictor has predicted that the player will take only box B, then box B contains $1,000,000.

The player does not know what the predictor predicted or what box B contains while making the choice.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49733778)

simple as. i'm a simple goy who doesn't believe in nonsensical "jewish physics" like retrocausality

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49733679)

Also in order to one box you have to believe in either retrocausality or a non-causal decision theory, both of which are incredibly Jewish fwiw

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49733761)

simple-hearted yet not even in the slightest simple-minded (even your [cyber]detractors can't deny your formidable mental horsepower, IIRC, but then again Talmudic rhetoric is 180 so who knows), or:

Wise as a serpent yet innocent as a dove tp :-)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49733732)

If the computer has the potential to be wrong then it is a capricious god and you should take two boxes every time.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49733314)

This intriguing thematic premise must have been a classic SciFi movie or TV episode or anime and/or Japanese video game or Autoadmit performance art or something at some point, right? Urgently in need of thought provoking cultural curation, Thank.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2\u0026show=week#49733740)