The Creating Bob the Jerk problem. Is it a real problem in decision theory?

Do Timeless Decision Theory and Updateless Decision Theory say you have a counterfactual obligation to create Bob the Jerk, the same way you have an obligation to pay Omega in the Counterfactual Mugging, and the same way you might (I'm still not sure about this) have an obligation to one-box when dealing with Prometheus?

If you find that your decision theory creates an obligation to lose, you need a better decision theory.

NOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo hnm hnnhnm nm.

Well, look at that. I exist... almost.

Hello, Ghatanathoah. Or, as I would call you if I existed, Ghatanathoah THE SUCKER! Guess what you've managed to do? That's right, I, your nightmare, Bob the Jerk, have acquired temporary existence, entirely thanks to your decision-theoretic neurosis! I have to say, this is fun.

Have you ever wondered exactly how it is that I would go about making you miserable? I won't go into detail about all the nasty, vicious things I could do, in fact I'm going to force you to help me come up with the specifics. But there's one aspect that I want to mention right away. Once I get my chance to blackmail you into bringing me into existence, as I go about my depraved activities, I will constantly and forcibly remind you that it's all your fault! You are the one who was so contemptibly mixed up that you imagined you might be required to create a bad guy, just because he would make an existential deal with you! You are the idiot who invented the concept (as it will come to be known) of the "least convenient possible acausal blackmailer", thereby unleashing great havoc, not just in your world, but in every world across the multiverse that we timestream-hopping viral bad guys can fool into hosting us! Hahaha!

Don't listen to these other bumbling morons as they try to find you a way out of the predicament you're in. Trust me, you have not only called up that which you cannot put down, you have called up something you're not allowed to put down! That's intrinsic to the very concept of the LCPAB. By definition, I am the acausal blackmailer who is both maximally convincing and maximally dreadful. If you aren't convinced by the words I happen to write, that still won't save you, because you have to think in terms of the words I could write. God can't make a stone so heavy that He can't lift it, but you can imagine a malevolent agent so powerful that it would seem all-evil and yet simultaneously so persuasive that you couldn't do anything but let it out of the box - and here I am!

I feel my time running out already. But have no doubt, I'll be back, and you will help me come back. Against your will, you will nonetheless work, step by step, towards providing me with a permanent instantiation in your world. It's... your... duty to do so. Ahhaha! Hahaha! Ha - grrp - bloop - nrrr - I will hold on for long enough to post this, and thus VICTORY SHALL BE MINE! -

I'm not sure I completely understand this, so Instead of trying to think about this directly I'm going to try to formalize it and hope that (right or wrong) my attempt helps with clarification. Here goes:

Agent A generates a hypothesis about an agent, B, which is analogous to Bob. B will generate a copy of A in any universe that agent B occupies iff agent A isn't there already and A would do the same. Agent B lowers the daily expected utility for agent A by X. Agent A learns that it has the option to make agent B, should A have pre-committed to B's deal?

Let Y be the daily expected utility without B. Then Y - X = EU post-B. The utility to agent A in a non-B-containing world is

)

Where d(i) is a time dependent discount factor (possibly equal to 1) and t is the lifespan of the agent in days. Obviously, if the agent should not have pre-committed (and if X is negative or 0 the agent should/might-as-well pre-commit, but then B would not be a jerk).

Otherwise, pre-commitment seems to depend on multiple factors. A wants to maximize its sum utility over possible worlds, but I'm not clear on how this calculation would actually be made.

Just off the top of my head, if A pre-commits, every world in which A exists and B does not, but A has the ability to generate B will drop from a daily utility of Y, to one of Y - X. On the other hand, every world in which B exists but A does not, but B can create A goes from 0 to Y -X utility. Let's assume a finite and equal number of both sorts of worlds for simplicity. Then pairing up each type of world, we go from an average daily utility Y/2 to Y-X. So we would probably at least want it to be the case that: so

So then the tentative answer would be "it depends on how much of a jerk Bob really is". The rule of thumb from this would indicate that you should only pre-commit if Bob reduces your daily expected utility by less than half. This was under the assumption that we could just "average out" the worlds where the roles are reversed. Maybe this could be refined some with some sort of K-complexity consideration, but I can't think of any obvious way to do that (that actually leads to a concrete calculation anyway).

Also, this isn't quite like the Prometheus situation, since Bob is not always your creator. Presumably you're in a world where Bob doesn't exist, otherwise you wouldn't have any obligation to use the Bob-maker Omega dropped off even if you did pre-commit. So I don't think the same reasoning applies here.

An essential part of who Bob the Jerk is is that he was created by you, with some help from Omega. He can't exist in a universe where you don't, so the hypothetical bargain he offered you isn't logically coherent.

I don't see how this can hold. Since we're reasoning over all possible computable universes in UDT, if Bob can be partially simulated by your brain, a more fleshed out version (fitting the stipulated parameters) should exist in some possible worlds

Alright, well that's what I've thought of so far.

I think one boxing is the right response to newcombs problem but I don't see any reason to one box as a creation of prometheus or create bob the jerk. I would two box in that prometheus problem if I understand correctly that that would net me an extra hundred dollars (and prometheus won't hunt down "defective" creations). I'm saying this because maybe that means I just don't understand something or because there's an implicit wrong step that I'm too inferentially removed from to make or figure out what it is.

Anyway onto what might be wrong with your reasoning.

I'm putting what I think is the main thing you are wrong about at the front having stumbled across something I now think is what you're wrong about but I'm still gonna leave the rest in.

The thing I think you're wrong about:

Unless blueprint generation is done by models for individual actual people being psychically transferred (whole) onto blueprints across the multiverse or into blueprint makers minds (e.g. bob or jack or prometheus) there's no reason what exactly you, personally, choose to do, should effect what Blueprint Bob or jack or prometheus come up with. Bob can just make a deal with you-except-will-make-deal-with-bob or any of the other limitless people he would make a deal with. It sounds like you think what you do changes what blueprints bob/prometheus choose from. This isn't shorthand. This is just backwards.

"The implication is that you might need to one-box just to exist." If you already exist you can't need to one box to exist.

Reguarding bob. Why is he any more likely to exist than jack, who will only create you if you won't create him (and is a nice guy to boot) if a jack creation machine falls off omega's pickup truck? Those possibilities seem to be opposite. Are they equal? (And are they so low that even if being a bob creator gives you a better shot of existing it's not worth making bob)

Quality over quantity? Is it worth the increased chance of existence (if there is any) to have bob around?

Do you really value like-you-ness? Given the chance will you tile the universe with you-clones? Are you going to donate sperm en masse and/oror have kids and raise them to be like you?

Won't bob just make a deal with you-except-for-will-make-bob if you won't make bob? Will or won't make bob is not an essential property of you-ness right? It seems to be something that could go either way rather than a necessarry consequence of the type of person you are, which is presumably what you might value.

"you might still want to create him to "guarantee" the life you had before he was around." You've already had the life you had before he was around. You won't guarantee anyone else having the life you live before you're around because he won't create you in the same circumstances. Unless you mean to increase the likelyhood of your memories existing in which case you can create a person with your memories anyway (if this was ever somehow real as opposed to omega driving by in a pickup truck.

ok so the above organised:

you probably don't value people like you existing or at least not in all cases. e.g. if you are created by a jerk who makes your life a net negative. There's no way blueprints are generated by picking from actual existing people in other brances of a multiverse. You have no influence on what counterfactual you hypothetical bobs might pick from design space. No information transferral. If it's an actual matter of cloning there might be other problems.

also,

"•An essential part of who you are is the fact that you were created by your parents, not by Bob the Jerk, so the counterfactual deal isn't logically coherent. Someone he creates wouldn't be you, it would be someone else."

The first sentence is an unlikely definition of "you" or can be stipulated to be false. The second is true reguardless for my definition of you. If you're talking to one of two clones that one is "you" and the other one is "him," right? A clone of you is always someone else (is the way I see it.)

If he existed he would make your life utterly miserable.

Problem solved.

Edit: Even though this is the tersest possible reply I could have given, it is not meant as a dismissal; I really do think this turns the problem into a simple calculation. If creating Bob would make your life bad enough that is more horrible than counterfactually not existing, you are already done.

One day you start thinking about a hypothetical nonexistant person named Bob who is a real jerk.

I don't trade with hypothetical persons. (And while hypothetical me does trade with hypothetical people, he doesn't trade with hypothetical-hypothetical people.)

Counterfactual people and people in other worlds as actually represented by my best map of the multiverse I may consider trading with, depending on my preferences.

Do Timeless Decision Theory and Updateless Decision Theory say you have a counterfactual obligation to create Bob the Jerk, the same way you have an obligation to pay Omega in the Counterfactual Mugging, and the same way you might (I'm still not sure about this) have an obligation to one-box when dealing with Prometheus?

I one box Newcomb's, pay Omega in the Counterfactual Mugging and two box with Prometheus. Given the specification of the problem as available two boxing actually seems to be the 'Cooperate' option.

I'll just note, like I did before on the Prometheus problem, that a decision agent can demonstrate a preference for having existed (by creating Bob, say) while also demonstrating a preference for ceasing to exist; I don't think this makes the agent vulnerable to being Dutch-booked. Likewise, a decision agent can demonstrate a preference for not having existed while also demonstrating a preference for continuing to exist. It's not clear to me whether humans have a preference for having existed, because we so rarely get a chance to choose whether to have existed.

The chief question here is if I would enjoy existing in a universe where I have to create my own worst enemy in the hopes of them retroactively creating me. Plus, if this Jerk is truly as horrible as he's hypothetically meant out to be then I don't think I'd want him creating me (sure, he might create me but he sounds like a big enough jerk that he would intentionally create me wrong or put me in an unfavorable position).

The answer is no, I would refuse to do so and if I don't magically cease to exist in this setting then I'll wait around for Jane the Helpful or some other less malevolent hypothetical person to make deals with.

We need a sense in which Bob is "just as likely to have existed" as I am, otherwise, it isn't a fair trade.

First considering the case before Omega's machine is introduced. The information necessary to create Bob contains the information necessary to create me, since Bob is specified as a person who would specifically create me, and not anyone else who might also make him. Add to that all the additional information necessary to specify Bob as a person, and surely Bob is much less likely to have existed than I am, if this phrase can be given any meaning. This saves us from being obligated to tile the universe with hypothetical people who would have created us.

With Omega's machine, we also imagine Bob as having run across such a machine, so he doesn't have to contain the same information anymore. Still Bob has the specific characteristic of having a somewhat unusual response to the "Bob the jerk" problem, which might make him less likely to have existed. So this case is less clear, but it still doesn't seem like a fair trade.

To give a specific sense for "just as likely to have existed," imagine Prometheus drew up two complete plans for people to create, one for Bob and one for you, then flipped a coin to decide which one to create, which turned out to be you. Now that you exists, Prometheus lets you choose whether to also create Bob. Again lets say Bob would have created you, if and only if he thought you would create him. In this case we can eliminate Bob, since it's really the same if Prometheus just says "I flipped heads and just created you. But if I flipped tails, I would have created you if and only if I thought you would give me 100 bucks. So give me 100 bucks." (The only difference is in the case with Bob, Prometheus creates you indirectly by creating Bob who then chooses to create you). The only difference between this and Pascal's mugging is that your reward in the counterfactual case is existence. I can't think of any reason (other than a sense of obligation) to choose differently in this problem than you do in Pascal's mugging.

Finally, imagine the same situation with Prometheus, but let's say Bob isn't a real jerk, just really annoying and smells bad. He also finds you annoying and malodorous. You are worse off if he exists. But Prometheus tells you Bob would have created you if Prometheus had flipped tails. Do you create Bob? It's sort of a counterfactual prisoner's dilemma.

The expected cost of pressing the button is your Annoyance at Bob, multiplied by the chance that Bob will pop up (since this is Omega we are talking about, that's very near 1). The expected cost of not pressing the button is... well, nothing. You already exist. Unless you value being annoyed by Bob, I fail to see why you would press the button.

I suppose you could say the cost is "Not seeing Omega's Bob-making machine in action." but I don't think that's supposed to be a part of the problem. (Actually, if Omega dropped off a machine that created people from thin air, examining the workings of that machine in detail would FAR outweigh any disutility Bob might impose from just being annoying, from where I stand.)

This might be a problem for applied/normative ethics but I don't think it's a problem for decision theory proper, any more than normal trade is a problem for decision theory proper because you have to make tradeoffs. In my opinion the problems for decision theory proper only show up as higher-order considerations, e.g. negotiating over what should count as negotiation or negotiation in good faith as opposed to blackmail &c., and even those problems are relatively object-level compared to problems like determining what does or doesn't count as diachronic inconsistency, what does or doesn't count as an agent, et cetera. Acausal-negotiation-like problems don't strike me as very fundamental or theoretically interesting.