Jan

28

This is my favourite channel an YouTube. And I liked this particular episode so much it may be my favourite so far:

What The Prisoner's Dilemma Reveals About Life, The Universe, and Everything

The prisoners dilemma is a choice participants need to make that are as follows:

1. If both participants cooperate, they both get $10 each.

2. If only one of the participants cooperate, the defector gets $1, and the one trying to cooperate (be honest) gets $0.

3. If both participants defect (both are dishonest to each other), they both get $1, which is way less than the $10 they would each get by both cooperating.

These are the only four possible states or outcomes of the game. The objective is simple, if the game is repeated for several rounds, under different environments (varying ratio of cooperators & defectors). What strategy should one choose to make the most money? Several agents choose independent strategies and play against each other with whatever strategy they have chosen. All with the aim of making the most money. It turns out that the best strategy for this game amongst different agents is one they call "Tit for Tat". It can be summarised as, "Be Nice, Try to forgive, But don't be a doormat/push over."

Stefan Jovanovich writes:

Pinched from a Stanford course catalog from 1998/9: Axelrod's Tournament:

In 1980, Robert Axelrod, professor of political science at the University of Michigan, held a tournament of various strategies for the prisoner's dilemma. He invited a number of well-known game theorists to submit strategies to be run by computers. In the tournament, programs played games against each other and themselves repeatedly. Each strategy specified whether to cooperate or defect based on the previous moves of both the strategy and its opponent.

Big Al adds:

The Evolution of Cooperation, by Robert Axelrod

We assume that, in a world ruled by natural selection, selfishness pays. So why cooperate? In The Evolution of Cooperation, political scientist Robert Axelrod seeks to answer this question. In 1980, he organized the famed Computer Prisoners Dilemma Tournament, which sought to find the optimal strategy for survival in a particular game. Over and over, the simplest strategy, a cooperative program called Tit for Tat, shut out the competition. In other words, cooperation, not unfettered competition, turns out to be our best chance for survival.

Kim Zussman gets biological:

Cooperation and Darwin:

Cumulative exposure to paternal seminal fluid prior to conception and subsequent risk of preeclampsia

Humbert H. comments:

The original prisoner’s dilemma was about literal prisoners who didn’t get to play even twice with the same “partners”. There are a lot of situations in the real world that map to the prisoner’s dilemma, but a lot fewer that map to playing the same game with the same partners who are rational and capable of learning.

Big Al appends:

Yale Game Theory Course (24 videos), with Dr. Benjamin Polak.

Peter Grieve goes deep:

I am convinced that the principal functions of a healthy society are (1) to get to the good payoff of the Prisoner's Dilemma, and (2) to find an acceptable solution for the Trolley Problem.


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