THE PRISONER’S DILEMMA BY ADAM SACARNY / Drive boy dog boy dirty numb angel boy
If I am to make a movie in the next month, it shall be about the Prisoner’s Dilemma. That’s not to say that I’m going to be making a movie in the next month — I won’t be. But you know, it’s something you think about.
Take two prisoners. They have both committed some crime, and they have to choose to cooperate with authorities (confess) or to defect (dont’ confess). Hence the following:
Here’s the problem. Each prisoner must assume that the other will go for the gold of defection (not confessing to the crime/blaming the other guy) in hopes of getting off scot free. To prevent himself from paying the penalty of life imprisonment, the logical choice is for he, himself, to defect.
Because both prisoners go through the same thought process, they both arrive at the same conclusion. Both defect, and they end up with the bottom-right box: 20 years. Hence The Prisoner’s Dilemma.
The optimal solution is for both of them to cooperate. But in this “non-iterated” game, they would be fools to do such a thing. One could end up with life. AND THAT SUCKS
Now, the interesting thing is how we can make the prisoners cooperate. This stuff is called game theory, and there has been quite a bit of research on how to get people out of the bottom right box and into the top left one. It focuses on moving out of single games into sequences of them. Tit-for-tat gameplay occurs when one partner cooperates, and then each partner mimics the other. Instead of expecting defection, one expects cooperation. On the other hand, one doesn’t defect, because that defection would be mimicked in the future by the partner.
I think about this stuff a lot with respect to social situations. Much of the “dilemma” is mitigated by the iterative gameplay of friendship. We have established trust bonds with our friends and can usually expect them to cooperate. But what happens when you find your friend defecting. The iterated system breaks down and we’re back with a prisoner’s dilemma. You’ve got to defect too or pay a big penalty.
That was boring. Go have a lemon party.