[HN Gopher] The Greedy Doctor Problem
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The Greedy Doctor Problem
        
       Author : ignored
       Score  : 5 points
       Date   : 2021-11-18 20:20 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (universalprior.substack.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (universalprior.substack.com)
        
       | titanomachy wrote:
       | The suggested stable equilibrium in the doctor-detective scenario
       | is that the doctor makes accurate diagnoses and the detective
       | makes random guesses, leading to a 50% split of income between
       | the two agents.
       | 
       | If we assume that the doctor and detective are both adversarial--
       | i.e. they assign utility to _preventing_ us from learning about
       | ground truth--then what 's stopping them from using some other
       | strategy that preserves this payout scheme without giving us
       | useful diagnoses?
       | 
       | Even worse, if _only_ the doctor is adversarial, then it can
       | bribe the detective by letting the detective win, say, 51% of the
       | time in exchange for keeping their shared source of randomness a
       | secret.
        
       | kuiper0x2 wrote:
       | The obvious, obvious thing is to simply pay the doctor a fix
       | priced each month wether they diagnose you with something or not.
       | Well above what they would earn elsewhere.
       | 
       | Their incentive then becomes to keep a good relationship with you
       | so you continue to pay them. The best way to do that is to keep
       | you healthy and happy.
        
         | gwerbret wrote:
         | I agree with the idea of paying the doctor a flat fee every
         | month, but in my variant, the doctor has to repay you the
         | entire sum you've paid to date, with 10% interest, if you
         | succumb to any preventable illnesses; in other words, the
         | doctor now has some real skin in the game. S/he becomes
         | motivated not only to keep you well, but to keep the fees
         | reasonable.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-11-18 23:03 UTC)