Definition
Plain language
How much getting a particular piece of information would improve a decision.
As stated in the literature
A decision-theoretic quantity equal to the expected utility gain from acquiring information before deciding, used to prioritize clarification, measurement, or experimentation.
Also called: VOI
Why it matters: It gives agents a principled way to decide when to ask a clarifying question or run an experiment instead of just guessing.
For example, before ordering an expensive medical test, a doctor weighs whether its result would actually change the treatment plan.
Heard on the show
“That's what lets them draw what they call value-of-information curves — VOI — one per type of missing information.”Episode 035 — Why Frontier Agents Ask for Clarification at Exactly the Wrong Moment