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comment by Oscar_Cunningham · 2022-03-15T09:40:34.848Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I agree that 'credence' and 'frequency' are different things. But round here the word 'probability' does refer to credence rather than frequency. This isn't a mistake; it's just the way we're using words.
Replies from: Daniel_Eth↑ comment by Daniel_Eth · 2022-03-15T09:56:44.466Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Okay, but I've also seen rationalists use point estimates for probability in a way that led them to mess up Bayes, and such that it would be clear if they recognized the probability was uncertain (e.g., I saw this a few times related to covid predictions). I feel like it's weird to use "frequency" for something that will only happen (or not happen) once, like whether the first AGI will lead to human extinction, though ultimately I don't really care what word people are using for which concept.
Replies from: yair-halberstadt↑ comment by Yair Halberstadt (yair-halberstadt) · 2022-03-15T09:59:51.274Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I think it's less a mistake of using point estimates, but rather not realizing certain probabilities are correlated, so you can't just multiply them out.
comment by Yair Halberstadt (yair-halberstadt) · 2022-03-15T09:56:23.286Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I'm not sure this distinction is real.
When a coin is spinning, it's either 100% going to land heads, or 100% going to land tails, I just don't know which. If I knew every detail of every atom in the room, and had sufficient compute, I could tell up front. So should I use credence instead of probability there?
Probability is a statement about your state of mind and your knowledge. In so far as it's about frequencies it's about frequencies from an anthropic perspective - what percentage of minds in the same state of mind as myself are in a world where the coin lands head, and what percentage are in a world where it lands tails.