English

Toward Idealized Decision Theory

Artificial Intelligence 2015-07-09 v1

Abstract

This paper motivates the study of decision theory as necessary for aligning smarter-than-human artificial systems with human interests. We discuss the shortcomings of two standard formulations of decision theory, and demonstrate that they cannot be used to describe an idealized decision procedure suitable for approximation by artificial systems. We then explore the notions of policy selection and logical counterfactuals, two recent insights into decision theory that point the way toward promising paths for future research.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1507.01986,
  title  = {Toward Idealized Decision Theory},
  author = {Nate Soares and Benja Fallenstein},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1507.01986},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

This is an extended version of a paper accepted to AGI-2015

R2 v1 2026-06-22T10:07:40.157Z