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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Unknown, I agree that Eliezer probably wouldn't be the best person to do this with. Maybe not even Robin, although Robin would make a good overseer/ref of the conversation case study.

The ideal would be two people, comfortable with bayesian reasoning, who have a demonstrated track record of updating their positions in response to new information from 3rd parties.

I think Anders Sandberg clearly would be one good choice. I'll have to think more about the second. I would nominate TGGP as a smart person with a demonstrated capacity to update his beliefs as a result of new information from third parties, but I'm unaware of his facility with the bayesian aspect.

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Robin Hanson's avatar

Hal, you are assuming that the person who hears your message is acting rationally and reasonably in responding to the message. Given this assumption, as you find, you can't really tell them much useful in this way. But if he is not responding reasonably, you can accurately tell him that his estimate will be lower than yours. And this is in fact what we find in lab experiments with humans, and in our ordinary experience with each other. We can in fact anticipate how others' future opinions will differ from our opinion now, even when we warn them of the direction of this difference.

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