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Asking whether A and B are different is not a useful question. There will be a difference 100% of the time. (Though of course sampling may not reliably detect the difference for feasible samples.)

The superior question is which is probably better, and by how much. If all you know is that A is 75% likely to be better than B, then go with A. It's useful information, even if it doesn't cross a an arbitrarily preset threshold of 95% or whatever you use.

You don't need to wait for certainty to act. In fact, all actions are taken under uncertainty. So it feels incredibly artificial and counterproductive to frame these questions in such a binary, nonlinear way. It's clinging to certainty when certainty does not exist.



Actually even that isn't the best question.

The best question is what's the expected reward from choosing A.

Consider the scenario of 10% chance B > A, 90% chance they are equal. To me that sounds like a winning bet.

In contrast, 70% chance B is a lot better than A, 30% chance B is a lot worse than A sounds like a scary bet. I'll wait and gather more info.

Proper decision theory is based on a loss function which incorporates the magnitude of gains/losses rather than just their existence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_function




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