Why do decision-theorists say "pre-commitment" rather than "commitment"?
e.g. "The agent pre-commits to 1 boxing" vs "The agent commits to 1 boxing".
Is this just a lesswrong thing?
It's not just a lesswrong thing (wikipedia).
My feeling is that (like most jargon) it's to avoid ambiguity arising from the fact that "commitment" has multiple meanings. When I google commitment I get the following two definitions:
- the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause, activity, etc.
- an engagement or obligation that restricts freedom of action
Precommitment is a synonym for the second meaning, but not the first. When you say, "the agent commits to 1-boxing," there's no ambiguity as to which type of commitment you mean, so it seems pointless. But if you were to say, "commitment can get agents more utility," it might sound like you were saying, "dedication can get agents more utility," which is also true.
The economist RH Strotz introduced the term "precommitment" in his 1955-56 paper "Myopia and Inconsistency in Dynamic Utility Maximization".
Thomas Schelling started writing about similar topics in his 1956 paper "An essay on bargaining", using the term "commitment".
Both terms have been in use since then.
It predates lesswrong by decades. I think it’s meant to emphasize that the (pre)commitment is an irrevocable decision that’s made BEFORE the nominal game (the thing that classical game theory analyzes) begins.
Of course, nowadays it’s just modeled as the game starting sooner to encompass different decision points, so it’s not really necessary. But still handy to remind us that it’s irrevocable and made previous to the obvious decision point.
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