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which answer do you choose in this puzzle? (xo engagement bait)
Poast new message in this thread
Date: March 10th, 2026 11:59 AM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier TOTAL VOTES:
BOX A ONLY: 7
BOTH BOXES: 2
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Setup: You walk into a room. There are two boxes.
Box A (opaque) — contains either $1,000,000 or $0.
Box B (transparent) — contains $1,000 (you can see this).
A highly reliable, God-Like AI Predictor (almost always right) has already predicted, before you walked into the room, whether you will take only Box A or both boxes. Its prediction includes the assumption that you will be aware of the rules of the game and of it making this prediction.
If the Predictor predicted you will take only Box A, they put $1,000,000 in Box A.
If the Predictor predicted you will take both boxes, they put $0 in Box A.
Now the boxes are in front of you. You must choose right now, and your choice does not affect the Predictor anymore (the prediction and the filling already happened).
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Do you take only Box A (hoping for $1,000,000), or do you take both Box A and Box B (guaranteeing the $1,000 but possibly losing the million, but with a higher maximum payoff of $1,001,000)? Why? |
Date: March 10th, 2026 11:59 AM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier i'm a two-boxer myself (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49731651) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 12:19 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49731723) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 12:25 PM Author: China but i did eat breakfast today (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49731753) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 12:27 PM Author: richard clock take box a, the 1K in box b is immaterial compared to 1M so not worth risking it (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49731757) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 12:29 PM Author: @grok, is this true? A only, but my intuition is that there is some non-intuitive reason this is incorrect. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49731759) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 12:31 PM Author: spiritually female godfather (gunneratttt) if the predictor is predicting based on me taking two boxes that may contain money, isn't stealing, have the option of taking both, etc. then ill take box b. no rational person would leave both boxes. i certainly wouldn't if its costless to take both, so i know the predictor would predict id take both. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49731765) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 12:53 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier i can't even parse this post
what is your choice |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 12:57 PM Author: spiritually female godfather (gunneratttt) i misread the hypo and thought i could only choose one.
id take both. the predictor would predict any rational person would take both, so it wouldn't matter, but its costless to see if it made an error since it's almost always right.
unless the predictor is in the first leg too (the predictor is predicited which move id take with a predictor). now im in a game of golden balls with essentially an ai clone. in which case id go with A, because $1000 is inconsequential and i think theres a greater than 1:1000 chance the predictor would think id choose that, so it's positive EV. |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:08 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier still don't understand wtf you are trying to say with "the predictor in the first leg" but this is a vote for taking both (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49731859) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:11 PM Author: spiritually female godfather (gunneratttt) if the predictor is predicting based on what id choose in that exact same situation, then ill take box A
if the predictor is predicting what'd id do in isolation, then ill take both |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:23 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier dude, what? lol
what exact same situation? isolation from what? huh?
the predictor is predicting (with 99.99999%+ accuracy) which choice you will make based on the rules of the game laid out in op. not sure if this helps or not |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:37 PM Author: spiritually female godfather (gunneratttt) your hypo is ambiguous about whether the predictor is predicting whether id take both boxes if there was no predictor (just two boxes, i can have one or both, no information about the odds of what's in box a or how that wad decided) or whether it's predicting what i would do under the exact same circumstances (with a predictor).
then i misred the question as "do you take A or B" instead of "do you take A or both?" under my A or B reading, the 100% correct answer would be B, and i thought you were asking this to see how many people would choose incorrectly because $1k is insignificant
if i had read your question correctly the context clue would have resolved the ambiguity. it was a rc fail on my part. |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:41 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier there is no hypo without the predictor and its prediction, and your awareness of the predictor and him making a prediction. it's woven in to the hypo
although the way you are thinking about this is on the right track imo |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:01 PM Author: spiritually female godfather (gunneratttt) yes i understood that a few poasts ago and said id take A.
i would choose A because $1k is inconsequential. im truly engaging in this hypo by *not* thinking of it further than that. if i choose A based on my gut, legitimately, not trying to game the predictor as it has already put/not put the money in A, then there's at least a chance the predictor would have predicted that (and under your hypo it *did* do that, because it was legitimately my first instinct.)
its kinda like quantum mechanics. the longer i think about it, the more likely i am to reach an optimal answer, which could be both. thus my actions right now do impact what the predictor has already done. |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 12:39 PM Author: Fucking Fuckface Box A only. I don't really care about $1k. Any semi-competent AI would know this about me. And if I'm wrong, oh well. That's like 4 visits to a decent restaurant at today's prices (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49731784) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 12:42 PM Author: peeface i say A, because i assume this AI will use these posts in its training data and i want it to believe that is the choice i would make.
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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:07 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49731856) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 12:43 PM Author: Waingro dont take either. just open up the opaque one to see if theres money in it and take the money if there is. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49731793) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 12:58 PM Author: Wes Scantlin Height of Predictor? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49731835) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:17 PM Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike: (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49731885) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:11 PM Author: jonathan penis does the ai assume i know the rules of the game before it makes its selection? seems obvious i would only choose Box A in that scenario. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49731864) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:20 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier yes (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49731901) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:40 PM Author: lex This is a key detail. Please revise the hypo to account for this critical information. Thankl (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49731971) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:47 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier i mean it's actually implicit in the original wording. but i added an additional sentence to clarify this. not actually sure it makes things clearer though...let me know (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49731998) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:23 PM Author: goyim in abundanceeeeee If I take Box A and there's no money in it, then does this necessarily mean that the AI predictor was inherently wrong at guessing what I would do, and if so, can I sue for damages? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49731911) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:49 PM Author: tancredi marchiolo there is no situation where id take box b even if a was empty not worth my time |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:53 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier then increase the amount of money in Box B to whatever amount of money would be worth your time, in order to make the hypo work (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732019) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:54 PM Author: goyim in abundanceeeeee This is the plot of Deal or No Deal dummy (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732023) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:55 PM Author: tancredi marchiolo 500k
in that situation i only take b |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:57 PM Author: goyim in abundanceeeeee They had an entire daytime TV show about this that ran for 15 years. And you could even make a demand for an amount of money that would get you to walk away from still gambling on the possibility of winning more money and the producers would either agree or shoot you down based on your immediate odds of winning more money. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732036) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:57 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier you are misreading the hypo (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732038) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:08 PM Author: tancredi marchiolo i didnt even read it (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732074) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:08 PM Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike: 180 (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732075) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:09 PM Author: richard clock (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732077) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:12 PM Author: fatty nigger (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732087) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:12 PM Author: spiritually female godfather (gunneratttt) (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732089) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:26 PM Author: Nude Karlstack (🧐) (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732130) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 3:53 PM Author: @grok, is this true? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732401) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:12 PM Author: fatty nigger what's in Box C? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732090) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:21 PM Author: Nazca Redlines On the one hand, this is kind of a twise on the Monty Hall problem, in which taking both boxes would be cr given that the AI has already made its prediction. On the other hand, Box A only is cr, and I'm taking Box A only.
The rational choice for someone (a) who can think through the excercise and (b) for whom $1,000 is nbd is to take only Box A and hope the AI sees that you would see it that way.
The answer might change if the AI is predicting for a random, average person, who is more likely to take both boxes. |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:32 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier the "$1000 is nbd" or" i don't want to "risk it" are sort of cop outs from fully honestly answering the hypo
i thought about increasing the amount from $1000 but this is a famous philosophical problem so i didn't want to tweak it |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:39 PM Author: spiritually female godfather (gunneratttt) after you feel this thread has run its course please poast the problem (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732178) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:42 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier the OP is the exact problem. i didn't change anything about it because i wanted to compare what XO people say against what other people say
nm realized you probably want to know the name and background of it, i'll poast it later |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:42 PM Author: richard clock what do other people say (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732190) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:46 PM Author: spiritually female godfather (gunneratttt) found it.
woah i was right about quantum retrocausality |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:53 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier yeah you're the only person who has really fully engaged with the hypo so far. it is not at all a straightforward problem (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732234) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 3:08 PM Author: spiritually female godfather (gunneratttt) tyvm
most poasters are very insecure about ever being wrong online. only like 15 people participated in my election guessing game where i offered a $50 giftcard. yet hundreds will make vague, non-falsiable "predictions."
from the face of the hypo most can tell its somewhat complicated and that there might be an objectively correct answer. and they'd rather not risk damage to their e-rep.
it's a lawyer forum, no suprise many are risk adverse bothboxmos |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 3:12 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier wow. "lawyers?" you're response?
(this is completely cr btw lmao all lawyers are the fucking same in this way) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 3:23 PM Author: spiritually female godfather (gunneratttt) not true just most. gunslingers like epah and cslg tend to do well because they're up against risk adverse fags. better call saul is the best legal show ever because it does a great job portraying this reality. |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:47 PM Author: Fucking Fuckface The value you assign to Box B is absolutely critical for the hypo, particularly in light of the claimed capability of the AI. It's not "a cop out" to take your hypo at face value (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732212) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:52 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier the reason why $1,000 is chosen for the hypo is to make the math clearer and cleaner if you actually perform a probabilistic EV calculation
you can look up the problem to see what i mean |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:57 PM Author: spiritually female godfather (gunneratttt) cr. if box B had a penny everyone would choose A even if they were 99.999999% certain the predictor had it empty, because there is close to no value in B.
the og hypo is from 1969, goy superstar should have made it $10m and $10k so that it's the same hypo adjusted for inflation. |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 3:01 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier lol, not a bad idea actually (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732254) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 3:17 PM Author: jonathan penis mfcr. a more interesting twist (although in fairness one which could only be posed to people who, for the sake of argument, may or may not have eaten breakfast this morning) would be what percentage of Box A would have to be in Box B before the answer becomes non-obvious. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732300) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:58 PM Author: Nazca Redlines How are "$1000 is nbd" or "i don't want to "risk it" cop outs? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732245) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 3:03 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier because we are Smart People who use Reason to decide on things, friend (are we not?!) (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732265) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 3:04 PM Author: richard clock they arent cop outs. in fact, gunnerattt, who he claims is the only one to "fully engage" with the problem, also came to the conclusion that "$1000 is nbd". (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732267) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 3:17 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier if you read his reasoning above, he doesn't stop there. he should have kept going for it to be fully coherent though. but i'm pretty sure he did in his head
this problem is more about exploring and explaining one's rationale (including assumptions) for one's choice than it is about the "correctness" of the choice itself |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 3:32 PM Author: spiritually female godfather (gunneratttt) no, the consequences and costs factor into decision making too. sometimes its rational to not do a mathematically rational thing.
let's say i offered to bet your entire net worth on something that was 51% in your favor paying even money. even though you have positive ev, you shouldn't do this, because the real cost of you losing everything isnt worth you having 2x. but if i offered you the same deal for $10, you would do it infinite times. |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 3:40 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier indeed. but this hypo is completely different than the one in the OP, and in fact it illustrates what the hypo in the OP is all about
in your hypo, it is 100% clear, without any doubt whatsoever, that we would be risking our entire net worth if we made the bet
in the hypo in the OP, the *entire question* is whether or not one is actually "risking" anything if one chooses to take two boxes rather than just Box A. that is what it's all about
that is why it's important to fully engage with the hypo in the OP. because otherwise you're not giving a meaningful answer to the question |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 3:45 PM Author: goyim in abundanceeeeee It's a terrible, nonsensical hypo and you're a lackwit with an upjumped sense of self importance. Most people did engage meaningfully with the hypo but you just didn't like any of the rational answers. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732376) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 3:46 PM Author: richard clock everyone here inherently understands that. it's impossible to know from your hypo how this Godlike AI makes his predictions and how he is able to predict behavior (or even whether something more bizarre is going on allowing the AI to predict correctly). it's entirely rational to act how you want the AI to believe you would act in this scenario. in the absence of perfect information, trying to outsmart the AI presents a non-zero risk, which is not worth the juice for a $1K windfall imo. thus "1K is NBD" is tcr. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732378) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 3:47 PM Author: goyim in abundanceeeeee I said this eleven fucking times already and he's never responded to it once so what is even the point. He's getting our goose by us even responding to this. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732382) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 3:54 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier you need to fill in those assumptions yourself as part of your answer to the question. that's the point
"it's entirely rational to act how you want the AI to believe you would act in this scenario (therefore i choose only Box A)"
here you are filling in those assumptions. good. this is a totally fine answer. naturally though, a two-boxer is going to point out: "but the Predictor's decision has already been made. you lose nothing by taking the other box too; you just get a free +$1000 EV"
and then the thought experiment continues from here, because the real question is: under what assumptions/conditions *would* you actually be Risking the $1,000,0000 by taking both boxes? |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 4:01 PM Author: spiritually female godfather (gunneratttt) well they know theyre risking something, even if they dont understand what or how, by virtue of the type being debatable even by very smart people. not getting something you would have in 10 seconds is functinally equivalent to losing something you already have.
lets say im certain A is empty and twobox is the best move, but box B has a penny. i know im human and fallible, so even though im certain, id hedge on solipism because its almost costless. or reverse it and have box B have $999k. now, even if im nearly certain box A is full, the guaranteed money is too much to pass up.
the amount in the boxes, the deciders situation, and their confidence in their decision is all going to factor in. |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 4:12 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier these hypos do not pertain to the choice that the respondent is faced in the OP hypo, a choice that is entirely dependent on the assumptions/beliefs that the respondent is making about causality
it's a question pertaining to causality. if someone is caught up in thinking about the amounts of money involved, they are not thinking about the question hard enough, or are possibly just not intelligent enough to fully grasp the hypo. but i am pretty sure that everyone on this board is plenty smart enough to understand the depth of the hypo. it just takes some thinking, that's all |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 4:16 PM Author: spiritually female godfather (gunneratttt) maybe but that reason theres a significant money value attached at all, and the disparity between the two, is to get people to engage. a person is more apt to think more critically about consequential decisions, even hypothetical ones. if you posed the exact same question with $1 and a dime most people would say "who gives a fuck?" even though its the exact same thought experiment. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732461) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 4:24 PM Author: project bluebeam foot soldier yeah i really like your suggestion above to attach a multiplier to adjust for inflation
still, a Smart Person should pretty easily recognize what the hypo is all about. it's just that answering it becomes very complex the more you get into it. seeing the dollar numbers and then immediately stopping there is - at the risk of Judging others - not what Smart People do imho |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 4:16 PM Author: goyim in abundanceeeeee Even the people cited on Wikipedia think it's a shitty hypo, highly dependent on interpretation, and leads to answers like what if we built a time machine. It's so vague that you can come at it from a million different angles. There is no exact solution. It seems like most people fall into either camp of being a positive expected value fag or a moral fag. Either way this is some stuff people argue about in college science departments when their thesis isn't good enough. Pointless nonsense. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732463) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:23 PM Author: cypher *AI scrolling through your Early Life section on Wikipedia to make prediction* (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732118) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 2:38 PM Author: spiritually female godfather (gunneratttt) maybe in the future AI will do this to intice jews and incinerate them. like when the police get people with warrants to come in by saying there's unclaimed property at the station with their name on it. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732168) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 3:14 PM Author: goyim in abundanceeeeee Can you replace AI in the hypo with something that better illustrates the point you're trying to make? Because it's the most crucial part of the hypo and it's still unclear. If you just said there's a box with a thousand and a box with zero or a million it comes down simply to risk tolerance and necessity. If someone desperately needed a grand they don't risk taking box A.
It's also totally unclear why someone would take both boxes or not, and if this has any effect on the chance the computer decides they were worthy or not of leaving the million.
The hypo is totally broken because it comes down to whether or not we trust the decision making ability of a computer, which may or may not be right or wrong, and can't even be proven to be so until after you've taken a box or boxes. The whole hypo suffers from a lack of clarity. Is it just a sword in a stone situation where we're just hoping the robot deems us worthy? I fail to see why there's any point in guessing what a robot thinks of us. Wouldn't it then follow that the optimal strategy would be to appeal to the robot's inner sense of goodness enough to leave the million in the first box? That's what we're left with ultimately, and, perhaps, unfortunately.
If you're insinuating that the best course is to take Box B, prove the computer right about the goodness of humanity so that it must leave the million, then build a time machine and go back in time to take the first box, then I think you could have articulated that a lot better. |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 3:54 PM Author: @grok, is this true? Look up Newcomb’s Problem for variations, which normal says “near perfect” (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732405) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 4:07 PM Author: goyim in abundanceeeeee David Wolpert and Gregory Benford point out that paradoxes arise when not all relevant details of a problem are specified, and there is more than one "intuitively obvious" way to fill in those missing details. They suggest that, in Newcomb's paradox, the debate over which strategy is "obviously correct" stems from the fact that interpreting the problem details differently can lead to two distinct noncooperative games. Each strategy is optimal for one interpretation of the game but not the other. They then derive the optimal strategies for both of the games, which turn out to be independent of the predictor's infallibility, questions of causality, determinism, and free will.
Right so it's a shitty hypo and it depends on interpretation to arrive at the optimal strategy. |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 3:58 PM Author: state your IQ before I engage you further Put both boxes up my ass (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732412) |
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Date: March 10th, 2026 4:02 PM Author: spiritually female godfather (gunneratttt) (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843901&forum_id=2#49732421) |