TY - GEN
T1 - (Non-)equivalence of universal priors
AU - Wood, Ian
AU - Sunehag, Peter
AU - Hutter, Marcus
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - Ray Solomonoff invented the notion of universal induction featuring an aptly termed "universal" prior probability function over all possible computable environments [9]. The essential property of this prior was its ability to dominate all other such priors. Later, Levin introduced another construction - a mixture of all possible priors or "universal mixture"[12]. These priors are well known to be equivalent up to multiplicative constants. Here, we seek to clarify further the relationships between these three characterisations of a universal prior (Solomonoff's, universal mixtures, and universally dominant priors). We see that the the constructions of Solomonoff and Levin define an identical class of priors, while the class of universally dominant priors is strictly larger. We provide some characterisation of the discrepancy.
AB - Ray Solomonoff invented the notion of universal induction featuring an aptly termed "universal" prior probability function over all possible computable environments [9]. The essential property of this prior was its ability to dominate all other such priors. Later, Levin introduced another construction - a mixture of all possible priors or "universal mixture"[12]. These priors are well known to be equivalent up to multiplicative constants. Here, we seek to clarify further the relationships between these three characterisations of a universal prior (Solomonoff's, universal mixtures, and universally dominant priors). We see that the the constructions of Solomonoff and Levin define an identical class of priors, while the class of universally dominant priors is strictly larger. We provide some characterisation of the discrepancy.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84893187866&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-642-44958-1_33
DO - 10.1007/978-3-642-44958-1_33
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84893187866
SN - 9783642449574
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 417
EP - 425
BT - Algorithmic Probability and Friends
PB - Springer Verlag
T2 - Ray Solomonoff 85th Memorial Conference on Algorithmic Probability and Friends: Bayesian Prediction and Artificial Intelligence
Y2 - 30 November 2011 through 2 December 2011
ER -