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Mechanism Design

TagLast edit: 14 Oct 2021 14:27 UTC by Vladimir_Nesov

Mechanism Design is the theory of how to design incentives for strategic agents, such that the agents acting according to their selfish interests will result in a desired outcome. It can be applied to things like institution design, voting systems, school admissions, regulation of monopolists, market design, and auction design. Think of it as the engineering side of game theory, thinking backward from a desired goal, and designing structures that lead strategic agents to behave in a way that achieves that goal.

Important Concepts

Related Pages: Game Theory, Incentives, Principal-Agent Problems, Cryptocurrencies and blockchain, Public discourse

Related Sequences: Mechanism Design

[Se­quence an­nounce­ment] In­tro­duc­tion to Mechanism Design

badger30 Apr 2014 16:21 UTC
95 points
12 comments1 min readLW link

In­cen­tive com­pat­i­bil­ity and the Reve­la­tion Principle

badger3 May 2014 13:38 UTC
40 points
7 comments6 min readLW link

Mechanism De­sign: Con­struct­ing Al­gorithms for Strate­gic Agents

badger30 Apr 2014 18:37 UTC
71 points
14 comments9 min readLW link

Strat­e­gyproof Mechanisms: Possibilities

badger2 Jun 2014 2:26 UTC
42 points
4 comments6 min readLW link

Swiss Poli­ti­cal Sys­tem: More than You ever Wanted to Know (I.)

Martin Sustrik19 Jul 2020 1:11 UTC
172 points
39 comments24 min readLW link2 reviews

A vot­ing the­ory primer for rationalists

Jameson Quinn12 Apr 2018 15:15 UTC
234 points
98 comments17 min readLW link2 reviews

Ei­genKarma: trust at scale

Henrik Karlsson8 Feb 2023 18:52 UTC
186 points
52 comments5 min readLW link

Anti-so­cial Punishment

Martin Sustrik27 Sep 2018 7:08 UTC
309 points
66 comments6 min readLW link3 reviews

Swiss Poli­ti­cal Sys­tem: More than You ever Wanted to Know (III.)

Martin Sustrik11 Aug 2020 5:09 UTC
72 points
8 comments22 min readLW link

When Hind­sight Isn’t 20/​20: In­cen­tive De­sign With Im­perfect Credit Allocation

johnswentworth8 Nov 2020 19:16 UTC
79 points
24 comments6 min readLW link

[not on­go­ing] Thoughts on Pro­por­tional vot­ing methods

Jameson Quinn22 Jul 2020 2:46 UTC
32 points
53 comments46 min readLW link

Mo­ral pub­lic goods

paulfchristiano26 Jan 2020 0:10 UTC
147 points
74 comments4 min readLW link
(sideways-view.com)

Honors Fuel Achievement

Samo Burja10 Jun 2019 16:10 UTC
38 points
2 comments8 min readLW link
(medium.com)

So­cial Technology

Samo Burja2 Mar 2018 19:54 UTC
13 points
3 comments11 min readLW link

Ra­tional Me or We?

RobinHanson17 Mar 2009 13:39 UTC
164 points
156 comments1 min readLW link

How can non­prof­its gain the ad­van­tages of the for-profit model?

jasoncrawford6 May 2020 1:15 UTC
37 points
0 comments2 min readLW link
(rootsofprogress.org)

Melt­ing democracy

Richard_Ngo29 Apr 2020 20:10 UTC
30 points
6 comments6 min readLW link
(thinkingcomplete.blogspot.com)

Ex­per­i­ment: Separate High/​Low Pro­duc­tive Hours

Raemon8 Feb 2018 4:10 UTC
15 points
2 comments2 min readLW link

Ex­plain­ing Im­pact Markets

Saul Munn31 Jan 2024 9:51 UTC
95 points
2 comments3 min readLW link
(www.brasstacks.blog)

More Notes on Sim­ple Rules

Zvi21 May 2019 14:50 UTC
34 points
1 comment6 min readLW link
(thezvi.wordpress.com)

Self-Re­solv­ing Pre­dic­tion Markets

PeterMcCluskey3 Mar 2024 2:39 UTC
32 points
0 comments3 min readLW link
(bayesianinvestor.com)

Shap­ing eco­nomic in­cen­tives for col­lab­o­ra­tive AGI

Kaj_Sotala29 Jun 2018 16:26 UTC
45 points
15 comments4 min readLW link

Distributed pub­lic goods provision

paulfchristiano26 Sep 2020 21:20 UTC
26 points
3 comments5 min readLW link
(sideways-view.com)

Log­i­cal Foun­da­tions of Govern­ment Policy

FCCC10 Oct 2020 17:05 UTC
2 points
0 comments17 min readLW link

Tack­ling Moloch: How YouCongress Offers a Novel Co­or­di­na­tion Mechanism

Hector Perez Arenas15 May 2024 23:13 UTC
28 points
9 comments6 min readLW link

How Often Does Tak­ing Away Op­tions Help?

niplav21 Sep 2024 21:52 UTC
20 points
6 comments2 min readLW link

The Retroac­tive Fund­ing Land­scape: In­no­va­tions for Donors and Grantmakers

Dawn Drescher29 Sep 2023 17:39 UTC
13 points
0 comments1 min readLW link
(impactmarkets.substack.com)

Struc­tured Trans­parency: a frame­work for ad­dress­ing use/​mis-use trade-offs when shar­ing information

habryka11 Apr 2024 18:35 UTC
25 points
0 comments2 min readLW link
(arxiv.org)

Neutrality

sarahconstantin13 Nov 2024 23:10 UTC
154 points
26 comments11 min readLW link
(sarahconstantin.substack.com)

Nash Score for Vot­ing Techniques

abramdemski26 Nov 2020 19:29 UTC
20 points
12 comments6 min readLW link

[Question] Num­ber-guess­ing pro­to­col?

abramdemski7 Dec 2020 15:07 UTC
19 points
28 comments1 min readLW link

How to solve the ar­gu­ment about what the al­gorithm should do

Yoav Ravid15 Jan 2021 6:08 UTC
22 points
8 comments1 min readLW link

What would a com­pute mon­i­tor­ing plan look like? [Linkpost]

Akash26 Mar 2023 19:33 UTC
158 points
10 comments4 min readLW link
(arxiv.org)

Idea: Give the No­bel peace prize to in­sti­tu­tion designers

Tim Liptrot21 Jun 2021 17:22 UTC
29 points
5 comments2 min readLW link

Bet­ter Pass­word Peppering

Yoav Ravid24 Aug 2021 10:19 UTC
6 points
9 comments3 min readLW link

Man­i­fund x AI Worldviews

Austin Chen31 Mar 2023 15:32 UTC
33 points
0 comments1 min readLW link

More on Twit­ter and Algorithms

Zvi19 Apr 2023 12:40 UTC
37 points
7 comments13 min readLW link
(thezvi.wordpress.com)

Quadratic Vot­ing and Collusion

leogao17 Nov 2021 0:19 UTC
41 points
24 comments2 min readLW link

Alex Tabar­rok ad­vo­cates for crowd­fund­ing sys­tems with *Re­fund Bonuses*. I think this might be a nat­u­ral oc­cur­rence of a money pump against Causal De­ci­sion The­ory pledgers

mako yass14 Mar 2022 7:27 UTC
17 points
13 comments1 min readLW link
(marginalrevolution.com)

Thoughts on Crowd­fund­ing with Re­fund Bonuses

Yoav Ravid16 Mar 2022 16:29 UTC
38 points
19 comments6 min readLW link

[Question] Quadratic vot­ing with au­to­matic col­lu­sion?

SarahSrinivasan25 Apr 2022 16:15 UTC
10 points
5 comments1 min readLW link

In­no­va­tion, Stag­na­tion, and Para­trooper Operations

Davis_Kingsley6 May 2022 20:59 UTC
52 points
3 comments16 min readLW link

Notes on Po­ten­tial Fu­ture AI Tax Policy

Zvi25 Apr 2023 13:30 UTC
33 points
6 comments9 min readLW link
(thezvi.wordpress.com)

Multi-Win­ner 3-2-1 Voting

Yoav Ravid30 Oct 2023 3:31 UTC
14 points
6 comments3 min readLW link

Fea­ture re­quest: vot­ing but­tons at the bot­tom?

Oliver Sourbut24 Jun 2022 14:41 UTC
70 points
12 comments1 min readLW link

An­nounc­ing: Mechanism De­sign for AI Safety—Read­ing Group

Rubi J. Hudson9 Aug 2022 4:21 UTC
18 points
3 comments4 min readLW link

Com­men­sal Institutions

Sable1 Nov 2023 16:01 UTC
8 points
12 comments4 min readLW link
(affablyevil.substack.com)

Mechanism De­sign for AI Safety—Read­ing Group Curriculum

Rubi J. Hudson25 Oct 2022 3:54 UTC
15 points
3 comments1 min readLW link

In­sti­tu­tional Senescence

Martin Sustrik26 Jun 2020 4:40 UTC
27 points
7 comments2 min readLW link
(250bpm.com)

Pay Risk Eval­u­a­tors in Cash, Not Equity

Adam Scholl7 Sep 2024 2:37 UTC
202 points
19 comments1 min readLW link

Moloch Hasn’t Won

Zvi28 Dec 2019 16:30 UTC
186 points
40 comments7 min readLW link1 review
(thezvi.wordpress.com)

Afri­can Wild Dogs Vote By Sneez­ing—Can AI Help Us Do Bet­ter?

Augmented Assembly6 Feb 2023 21:09 UTC
10 points
6 comments4 min readLW link

La­tent vari­ables for pre­dic­tion mar­kets: mo­ti­va­tion, tech­ni­cal guide, and de­sign considerations

tailcalled12 Feb 2023 17:54 UTC
100 points
17 comments23 min readLW link

Fer­til­ity Rate Roundup #1

Zvi27 Feb 2023 13:30 UTC
51 points
20 comments11 min readLW link
(thezvi.wordpress.com)

[Question] [Re­source Re­quest] What are good re­sources for best prac­tice for cre­at­ing bu­reau­cracy?

ChristianKl9 Jul 2020 12:05 UTC
11 points
1 comment1 min readLW link

Eng­ineer­ing Ex­pe­rience Through Score

ZorbaTHut2 Aug 2020 12:09 UTC
25 points
0 comments4 min readLW link

Pro­posal for im­prov­ing the global on­line dis­course through per­son­al­ised com­ment or­der­ing on all websites

Roman Leventov6 Dec 2023 18:51 UTC
35 points
21 comments6 min readLW link

How To Use Bureaucracies

Samo Burja17 Jul 2018 8:10 UTC
63 points
37 comments9 min readLW link
(medium.com)

Pod­cast with Oli Habryka on LessWrong /​ Light­cone Infrastructure

DanielFilan5 Feb 2023 2:52 UTC
88 points
20 comments1 min readLW link
(thefilancabinet.com)

Quotes from Mo­ral Mazes

Zvi30 May 2019 11:50 UTC
114 points
27 comments53 min readLW link
(thezvi.wordpress.com)

The Costly Co­or­di­na­tion Mechanism of Com­mon Knowledge

Ben Pace15 Mar 2018 20:20 UTC
198 points
31 comments20 min readLW link2 reviews

Quadratic vot­ing for the 2018 Review

Ben Pace20 Dec 2019 22:59 UTC
39 points
42 comments5 min readLW link

[Part 1] Am­plify­ing gen­er­al­ist re­search via fore­cast­ing – Models of im­pact and challenges

19 Dec 2019 15:50 UTC
55 points
29 comments17 min readLW link

On Col­lu­sion—Vi­talik Buterin

Matt Goldenberg9 Oct 2019 14:45 UTC
24 points
3 comments1 min readLW link
(hackernoon.com)

Com­bin­ing Pre­dic­tion Tech­nolo­gies to Help Moder­ate Discussions

Wei Dai8 Dec 2016 0:19 UTC
21 points
15 comments1 min readLW link

Re­place judges with Key­ne­sian beauty con­tests?

John_Maxwell7 Oct 2019 4:00 UTC
30 points
5 comments3 min readLW link

Re­vi­tal­iz­ing Less Wrong seems like a lost pur­pose, but here are some other ideas

John_Maxwell12 Jun 2016 7:38 UTC
34 points
34 comments6 min readLW link

Every­thing I ever needed to know, I learned from World of War­craft: In­cen­tives and rewards

Said Achmiz7 May 2018 6:44 UTC
25 points
6 comments9 min readLW link
(blog.obormot.net)

In­ter­faces as a Scarce Resource

johnswentworth5 Mar 2020 18:20 UTC
187 points
15 comments12 min readLW link1 review

Crowd­sourc­ing mod­er­a­tion with­out sac­ri­fic­ing quality

paulfchristiano2 Dec 2016 21:47 UTC
18 points
26 comments1 min readLW link
(sideways-view.com)

Crime and punishment

PhilGoetz24 Mar 2011 21:53 UTC
50 points
192 comments2 min readLW link

In­cor­po­rat­ing Mechanism De­sign Into De­ci­sion Theory

StrivingForLegibility26 Jan 2024 18:25 UTC
17 points
4 comments4 min readLW link

To Boldly Code

StrivingForLegibility26 Jan 2024 18:25 UTC
25 points
4 comments3 min readLW link

Coun­ter­fac­tual Mechanism Networks

StrivingForLegibility30 Jan 2024 20:30 UTC
4 points
0 comments5 min readLW link

Storable Votes with a Pay as you win mechanism: a con­tri­bu­tion for in­sti­tu­tional design

Arturo Macias11 Mar 2024 15:58 UTC
17 points
19 comments2 min readLW link

Some Thoughts On Us­ing Auc­tions For Land Valuation

harsimony22 Feb 2024 19:54 UTC
0 points
9 comments9 min readLW link
(progressandpoverty.substack.com)

Democ­racy be­yond majoritarianism

Arturo Macias3 Sep 2024 15:10 UTC
5 points
2 comments4 min readLW link

Seek­ing Mechanism De­signer for Re­search into In­ter­nal­iz­ing Catas­trophic Externalities

c.trout11 Sep 2024 15:09 UTC
24 points
2 comments3 min readLW link

Im­por­tant open prob­lems in voting

Closed Limelike Curves1 Jul 2024 2:53 UTC
33 points
1 comment1 min readLW link

Should we ab­stain from vot­ing? (In non­de­ter­minis­tic elec­tions)

B Jacobs2 Oct 2024 10:07 UTC
5 points
6 comments4 min readLW link
(bobjacobs.substack.com)

How long should poli­ti­cal (and other) terms be?

ohmurphy14 Oct 2024 21:38 UTC
5 points
0 comments1 min readLW link
(ohmurphy.substack.com)

Agenda Manipulation

Pazzaz9 Nov 2024 14:13 UTC
2 points
0 comments3 min readLW link

We are Peace­craft.ai!

MadHatter16 Nov 2023 14:15 UTC
15 points
20 comments2 min readLW link

Inad­e­quate Equil­ibria vs. Gover­nance of the Commons

Martin Sustrik25 May 2018 13:17 UTC
184 points
17 comments14 min readLW link2 reviews

Dire Bullshit

Alicorn15 Apr 2018 4:59 UTC
98 points
5 comments2 min readLW link

Recom­men­da­tions vs. Guidelines

Scott Alexander13 Apr 2018 4:10 UTC
77 points
18 comments5 min readLW link
(slatestarcodex.com)

Play­ing Politics

sarahconstantin5 Dec 2018 0:30 UTC
97 points
45 comments12 min readLW link
(srconstantin.wordpress.com)

LessWrong 2.0

Vaniver9 Dec 2015 18:59 UTC
127 points
313 comments8 min readLW link

The Power of Reinforcement

lukeprog21 Jun 2012 13:42 UTC
172 points
474 comments4 min readLW link

What is op­er­a­tions?

Swimmer963 (Miranda Dixon-Luinenburg) 26 Sep 2019 14:16 UTC
110 points
9 comments7 min readLW link

Les­sons from the Cold War on In­for­ma­tion Hazards: Why In­ter­nal Com­mu­ni­ca­tion is Critical

Gentzel24 Feb 2018 23:34 UTC
47 points
10 comments4 min readLW link

From Per­sonal to Pri­son Gangs: En­forc­ing Proso­cial Behavior

johnswentworth24 Jan 2019 18:07 UTC
153 points
26 comments5 min readLW link2 reviews

Less Com­pe­ti­tion, More Mer­i­toc­racy?

Zvi20 Jan 2019 2:00 UTC
85 points
19 comments20 min readLW link3 reviews
(thezvi.wordpress.com)

Defeat­ing Ugh Fields In Practice

Psychohistorian19 Jun 2010 19:37 UTC
96 points
95 comments2 min readLW link

The Case for The EA Hotel

Matt Goldenberg31 Mar 2019 12:31 UTC
57 points
26 comments10 min readLW link

Recom­men­da­tion Fea­tures on LessWrong

15 Jun 2019 0:23 UTC
62 points
36 comments4 min readLW link

Free-to-Play Games: Three Key Trade-Offs

Zvi10 Sep 2019 12:10 UTC
47 points
4 comments5 min readLW link
(thezvi.wordpress.com)

3 Cul­tural In­fras­truc­ture Ideas from MAPLE

Unreal26 Nov 2019 18:56 UTC
53 points
15 comments9 min readLW link

Re­place your­self be­fore you stop or­ga­niz­ing your com­mu­nity.

Raemon22 Jul 2018 20:57 UTC
65 points
16 comments4 min readLW link

Why Do You Keep Hav­ing This Prob­lem?

Davis_Kingsley20 Jan 2020 8:33 UTC
47 points
16 comments1 min readLW link

Pro­tect­ing Large Pro­jects Against Mazedom

Zvi3 Feb 2020 17:10 UTC
76 points
11 comments4 min readLW link1 review
(thezvi.wordpress.com)

Re­sponse to Glen Weyl on Tech­noc­racy and the Ra­tion­al­ist Community

John_Maxwell22 Aug 2019 23:14 UTC
66 points
9 comments10 min readLW link

How I see knowl­edge aggregation

zulupineapple3 Feb 2018 10:31 UTC
24 points
17 comments2 min readLW link

3 Levels of Ra­tion­al­ity Verification

Eliezer Yudkowsky15 Mar 2009 17:19 UTC
81 points
246 comments3 min readLW link

Per­mis­sions in Governance

sarahconstantin2 Aug 2019 19:50 UTC
53 points
12 comments8 min readLW link
(srconstantin.wordpress.com)

Turn­ing the Tech­ni­cal Crank

Error5 Apr 2016 5:36 UTC
74 points
134 comments6 min readLW link

Pre­dic­tion-Aug­mented Eval­u­a­tion Systems

ozziegooen9 Nov 2018 10:55 UTC
44 points
12 comments8 min readLW link

Is com­mu­nity-col­lab­o­ra­tive ar­ti­cle pro­duc­tion pos­si­ble?

lukeprog21 Mar 2012 20:10 UTC
57 points
46 comments3 min readLW link

Sim­ple Rules of Law

Zvi19 May 2019 0:10 UTC
56 points
24 comments28 min readLW link1 review
(thezvi.wordpress.com)

Quick Thoughts on Gen­er­a­tion and Eval­u­a­tion of Hy­pothe­ses in a Community

Ben Pace6 Sep 2018 1:01 UTC
60 points
5 comments4 min readLW link

Frac­tional Re­serve Charity

Alicorn7 Jun 2019 5:14 UTC
34 points
4 comments5 min readLW link

[Question] Why aren’t as­surance con­tracts widely used?

Daniel Kokotajlo1 Dec 2019 0:20 UTC
34 points
14 comments1 min readLW link

[Question] How im­por­tant is it that LW has an un­limited sup­ply of karma?

jacobjacob11 Feb 2019 1:41 UTC
27 points
9 comments2 min readLW link

Se­condary Risk Markets

Vaniver11 Dec 2023 21:52 UTC
35 points
4 comments4 min readLW link

New pa­per: The In­cen­tives that Shape Behaviour

RyanCarey23 Jan 2020 19:07 UTC
23 points
5 comments1 min readLW link
(arxiv.org)

[Question] Could we solve this email mess if we all moved to paid emails?

jacobjacob11 Aug 2019 16:31 UTC
29 points
50 comments4 min readLW link

Every­thing I ever needed to know, I learned from World of War­craft: Good­hart’s law

Said Achmiz3 May 2018 16:33 UTC
37 points
21 comments6 min readLW link1 review
(blog.obormot.net)

One Web­site To Rule Them All?

anna_macdonald11 Jan 2019 19:14 UTC
30 points
23 comments10 min readLW link

An Eter­nal Company

moyamo6 Jun 2023 15:56 UTC
7 points
8 comments4 min readLW link

Us­ing Con­sen­sus Mechanisms as an ap­proach to Alignment

Prometheus10 Jun 2023 23:38 UTC
9 points
2 comments6 min readLW link

Slay­ing the Hy­dra: to­ward a new game board for AI

Prometheus23 Jun 2023 17:04 UTC
0 points
5 comments6 min readLW link

The effi­ciency of prizes

lukeprog3 Apr 2012 21:45 UTC
39 points
18 comments2 min readLW link

Lite Blocking

jefftk5 Nov 2019 13:50 UTC
21 points
4 comments2 min readLW link
(www.jefftk.com)

Bo­gus Exam Questions

Donald Hobson28 Mar 2020 12:56 UTC
18 points
8 comments3 min readLW link

Demo­cratic Fine-Tuning

Joe Edelman29 Aug 2023 18:13 UTC
22 points
2 comments1 min readLW link
(open.substack.com)

Longevity Insurance

canadaduane20 Feb 2012 0:30 UTC
24 points
18 comments2 min readLW link

en­ergy land­scapes of experts

bhauth2 Oct 2023 14:08 UTC
41 points
2 comments3 min readLW link
(www.bhauth.com)

The New Age of So­cial Engineering

VivaLaPanda7 Dec 2019 0:23 UTC
22 points
7 comments11 min readLW link

[Question] What if we could use the the­ory of Mechanism De­sign from Game The­ory as a medium achieve AI Align­ment?

farari74 Apr 2021 12:56 UTC
4 points
0 comments1 min readLW link

Ran­domWalkNFT: A Game The­ory Exercise

Annapurna12 Nov 2021 19:05 UTC
7 points
10 comments2 min readLW link

Im­prov­ing on the Karma System

Raelifin14 Nov 2021 18:01 UTC
98 points
35 comments19 min readLW link

A bridge to Dath Ilan? Im­proved gov­er­nance on the crit­i­cal path to AI al­ign­ment.

Jackson Wagner18 May 2022 15:51 UTC
24 points
0 comments12 min readLW link

New co­op­er­a­tion mechanism—quadratic fund­ing with­out a match­ing pool

Filip Sondej5 Jun 2022 13:55 UTC
11 points
0 comments5 min readLW link

Crypto loves im­pact mar­kets: Notes from Schel­ling Point Bogotá

Rachel Shu22 Oct 2022 15:58 UTC
17 points
2 comments1 min readLW link

AI psy­chol­ogy should ground the the­o­ries of AI con­scious­ness and in­form hu­man-AI eth­i­cal in­ter­ac­tion design

Roman Leventov8 Jan 2023 6:37 UTC
19 points
8 comments2 min readLW link

Selec­tive, Cor­rec­tive, Struc­tural: Three Ways of Mak­ing So­cial Sys­tems Work

Said Achmiz5 Mar 2023 8:45 UTC
99 points
13 comments2 min readLW link