I kind of think we should start calling Prisoner’s Dilemma programs “Tradebot” instead of Cooperatebot and “Warbot” instead of defectbot or whatever. It more closely matches real life situations that match onto the reward matrix: Trading is mutually beneficial if you both do it, War is expensive if you’re both good at it but if the opponent is not prepared for war it is profitable.
CooperateBot has the extra connotation of having no faculties for deciding not to cooperate in some situations, and thereby being completely vulnerable to exploitation. TradeBot doesn’t quite capture this, “trader” implies an ability to get ahead, while “cooperator” can be a context-ignoring idiot.
Over here I called the moves “Give” and “Take”. We could rename Cooperatebot “Giver” and Defectbot “Taker” and skip the politics. It seems to me that putting political implications such as “trade” and “war” into the game would not make people think more clearly about it, but the opposite.
taking is fine but the entire point of trade is that it’s the real life situation that matches cooperation a lot more closely than being in prison with some guy. It’s the basis for economics. You don’t just “give” you also get.
Hmm. In the Prisoner’s Dilemma (Axelrod payoff matrix) — Your actions control your opponent’s score more than your own. You can increase your opponent’s score (by 4 or 3) by decreasing your own (by 1 or 2).
Given opponent C, my choice makes only 2 points of difference to my score, but 3 points of difference to the opponent’s score. Given opponent D, my choice makes only 1 point of difference to my score, but 4 points of difference to the opponent’s score.
I kind of think we should start calling Prisoner’s Dilemma programs “Tradebot” instead of Cooperatebot and “Warbot” instead of defectbot or whatever. It more closely matches real life situations that match onto the reward matrix: Trading is mutually beneficial if you both do it, War is expensive if you’re both good at it but if the opponent is not prepared for war it is profitable.
CooperateBot has the extra connotation of having no faculties for deciding not to cooperate in some situations, and thereby being completely vulnerable to exploitation. TradeBot doesn’t quite capture this, “trader” implies an ability to get ahead, while “cooperator” can be a context-ignoring idiot.
Over here I called the moves “Give” and “Take”. We could rename Cooperatebot “Giver” and Defectbot “Taker” and skip the politics. It seems to me that putting political implications such as “trade” and “war” into the game would not make people think more clearly about it, but the opposite.
taking is fine but the entire point of trade is that it’s the real life situation that matches cooperation a lot more closely than being in prison with some guy. It’s the basis for economics. You don’t just “give” you also get.
Hmm. In the Prisoner’s Dilemma (Axelrod payoff matrix) —
Your actions control your opponent’s score more than your own.
You can increase your opponent’s score (by 4 or 3) by decreasing your own (by 1 or 2).
Given opponent C, my choice makes only 2 points of difference to my score, but 3 points of difference to the opponent’s score. Given opponent D, my choice makes only 1 point of difference to my score, but 4 points of difference to the opponent’s score.