Knowledge, probability, and adversaries

Abstract

What should it mean for an agent to know or believe an assertion is true with probability 9.99? Different papers [2, 6, 15] give different answers, choosing to use quite different probability spaces when computing the probability that an agent assigns to an event. We show that each choice can be understood in terms of a betting game. This betting game itself can be understood in terms of three types of adversaries influencing three different aspects of the game. The first selects the outcome of all nondeterministic choices in the system; the second represents the knowledge of the agent's opponent in the betting game (this is the key place the papers mentioned above differ); and the third is needed in asynchronous systems to choose the time the bet is placed. We illustrate the need for considering all three types of adversaries with a number of examples. Given a class of adversaries, we show how to assign probability spaces to agents in a way most appropriate for that class, where “most appropriate” is made precise in terms of this betting game. We conclude by showing how different assignments of probability spaces (corresponding to different opponents) yield different levels of guarantees in probabilistic coordinated attack.