LessWrong (30+ Karma) “Coherent Care” by abramdemski
Mar 1, 2026
Abram Dembski, researcher and writer on decision theory and AI safety, offers a crisp tour of updateless decision theory and related formal ideas. He contrasts advice, design, and naturalist stances. He walks through Transparent Newcomb, the smoking lesion, calibration concepts, and how subjective-state issues shape policy vs action reasoning.
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Three Complementary Decision Theory Stances
- Decision theory can be framed three ways: advice, design, and naturalist, each emphasizing different aims and evaluations.
- Abram Dembski contrasts advice (good persuasive advice), design (procedures placed into problems), and naturalist (descriptive study of observed agency).
Transparent Newcomb Illustration
- Transparent Newcomb: Omega predicts you and fills the large box if you would leave the small one when seeing a full large box.
- CDT/EDT recommend two-boxing while UDT recommends one-boxing by comparing policies across observation cases.
Smoking Lesion Example
- Smoking Lesion: a genetic lesion causes both smoking and cancer, so smoking doesn't causally raise cancer risk, yet correlations exist.
- CDT tends to smoke, EDT tends not to, creating apparent inconsistency about putting CDT into that setup.