Newcomb’s problem is a thought experiment where you’re presented with two boxes, and the option to take one or both. One box is transparent and always contains $1000. The second is a mystery box.
Before making the choice, a supercomputer (or team of psychologists, etc) predicted whether you would take one box or both. If it predicted you would take both, the mystery box is empty. If it predicted you’d take just the mystery box, then it contains $1,000,000. The predictor rarely makes mistakes.
This problem tends to split people 50-50 with each side thinking the answer is obvious.
An argument for two-boxing is that, once the prediction has been made, your choice no longer influences the outcome. The mystery box already has whatever it has, so there’s no reason to leave the $1000 sitting there.
An argument for one-boxing is that, statistically, one-boxers tend to walk away with more money than two-boxers. It’s unlikely that the computer guessed wrong, so rather than hoping that you can be the rare case where it did, you should assume that whatever you choose is what it predicted.
Weird, I just saw a video about this. I’m a second box guy. Feel like talking both boxes is trying to “cheat” or “trick” the computer. Or maybe a greed thing. I’m not really sure. But I’d probably go for just the second box.
I’ll take the safe grand and not bother with gambling.
“You took the box! Let’s see what’s in the box! Nothing! Absolutely nothing! STUPID! You so STU-PIIIIIIIIIIID!”
This feels like the poison scene from the princess bride, so I’ll approach it with that level of intellectual derangement.
Which means the obvious first step is to recognize that the house is a cheater who wants you to stay poor so your choice doesn’t matter. There is poison in both cups and I will lose either way. Money no longer influences my decision.
Next, I flip a coin ten times and note my reaction to the choices. That’s my gut instinct and obviously what the model predicted unless it’s either not smart enough to know my gut or smart enough to predict my double bluff, therefore useless.
Next, I decide which variables are most likely to influence the prediction (gender, age, education level, big 5 personality score) and realize this is the adult marshmallow test. I obviously think I’m smart and want the model to know that, so it obviously predicted that I would take one box because I’m a good little goodie two shoes who delays instant gratification for the potential bigger payoff. Therefore I choose two boxes because the model would never expect someone as smart as I to make such a dumb greedy move. Surely, I have outsmarted the supercomputer with my quadruple bluff and have won.
And then I remember I am dumb and the model knows that, because in my excitement, I forgot that the house is a cheater who always wins (and there was likely never any money in the mystery box because researchers never get that kind of funding). I am forced to believe that the model accurately perceived me to be a greedy idiot who took two boxes against my better judgement, shattering my ego.
But hey, I at least got $1k out of it.
I’d just walk away entirely.
One box
Mmmm, this sounds like an idealist hypothetical problem that in reality can’t exist, so to engage with it is to engage with nonsense.
The predictor rarely makes mistakes because… just because. It’s axiomatic. The predictor runs on the magic of unsupported assertion.
Some version of it could exist. Not with the big numbers and not with the high degree of certainty in the problem, but you could have, say, somebody who’s on average 70% accurate at reading people and the boxes are $1 and $10.
It is somewhat idealist in that it’s a contrived scenario, but it’s really just idle curiosity on my part. Maybe it could reflect something about people’s thought processes, or maybe it’s just people interpreting the question differently.
Even if it were to exist in the short run, it wouldn’t be stable. The predictor must be predicting somehow, which eventually could be at least partially sussed out, and future decisions would change as a result. Unless the predictor runs on literal magic, it would eventually no longer fit its own definition.
It obviously depends on the computers mysterious ability to predict what I’m going to do.
once the prediction has been made, your choice no longer influences the outcome.
This statement doesn’t make sense. The computer would predict that you would think that.
Just the mystery box. If the computer rarely guesses wrong, then I’m $1,000,000 richer.
I think the numbers are a little off for this to be tempting, if I’m getting $1,000,000 then a K is a rounding error and I see no reason to make the mil any less likely for it. Like if I wanted that extra grand throwing 10% of the mil into a short GIC would be how I’d get it personally, for a risk free $1,001,000
I’m the kind of person who would ask for their definition of “rarely”. How many 9s are we talking? If it’s at least three nines, I’m one-boxing it.
I’m playing with the house’s money.
If I get nothing, I’m no worse off than I was before.
Besides, the mystery box is a mystery, and I love a mystery.
my favorite flavor of Dum-Dum
1 box
A rule of thumb I think is good for most sorts of investment is, what choice can you feel good about making whether or not it works out? I can handle not getting 1k, but I would feel like a real chump missing out on an easy 1m without giving my best effort. If I pick just the mystery box and win, I feel like that win is deserved. If I pick just the mystery box and I walk away with nothing, then at least I don’t have to live with the shame of being a 2-boxer, which is more valuable than $1k. If I pick both boxes, I most likely get a little bit of money and a lifetime of bitter regrets, or in the less likely case get 1.001 million dollars and a sense of having barely avoided disaster and not really “deserving” it. Choosing only the mystery box is the clear choice because it is the choice I am more able to handle having made, on an emotional level.
I’ll take the guanteed $1000 and not the mystery box so the prediction is always wrong :)
