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Pri­soner’s Dilemma

TagLast edit: 22 Sep 2020 19:32 UTC by Swimmer963 (Miranda Dixon-Luinenburg)

The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a well-studied game in game theory, where supposedly rational incentive following leads to both players stabbing each other in the back and being worse off than if they had cooperated.

The original formulation, via Wikipedia:

Two members of a criminal gang are arrested and imprisoned. Each prisoner is in Solitary Confinement with no means of communicating with the other. The prosecutors lack sufficient evidence to convict the pair on the principal charge, but they have enough to convict both on a lesser charge. Simultaneously, the prosecutors offer each prisoner a bargain. Each prisoner is given the opportunity either to betray the other by testifying that the other committed the crime, or to cooperate with the other by remaining silent. The possible outcomes are:
If A and B each betray the other, each of them serves two years in prison
If A betrays B but B remains silent, A will be set free and B will serve three years in prison
If A remains silent but B betrays A, A will serve three years in prison and B will be set free
If A and B both remain silent, both of them will serve only one year in prison (on the lesser charge).

The “stay silent” option is generally called Cooperate, and the “betray” option is called Defect. The only Nash Equilibrium of the Prisoner’s Dilemma is both players defecting, even though each would prefer the cooperate/​cooperate outcome.

A popular variant is the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma, where two agents play the Prisoner’s Dilemma against each other a number of times in a row. A simple and successful strategy is called Tit for Tat—cooperate on the first round, then on subsequent rounds do whatever your opponent did on the last round.

External links

See also

References

Pro­ject idea: an iter­ated pris­oner’s dilemma com­pe­ti­tion/​game

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8 points
0 comments5 min readLW link

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Log­i­cal Line-Of-Sight Makes Games Se­quen­tial or Loopy

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Pre­dictable Defect-Co­op­er­ate?

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Game The­ory with­out Argmax [Part 2]

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Game The­ory with­out Argmax [Part 1]

Cleo Nardo11 Nov 2023 15:59 UTC
53 points
16 comments19 min readLW link

A free to en­ter, 240 char­ac­ter, open-source iter­ated pris­oner’s dilemma tournament

Isaac King9 Nov 2023 8:24 UTC
64 points
19 comments1 min readLW link
(manifold.markets)

Four lev­els of un­der­stand­ing de­ci­sion theory

Max H1 Jun 2023 20:55 UTC
12 points
11 comments4 min readLW link

In­ves­ti­gat­ing Emer­gent Goal-Like Be­hav­ior in Large Lan­guage Models us­ing Ex­per­i­men­tal Economics

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6 points
1 comment4 min readLW link

Con­di­tions for Su­per­ra­tional­ity-mo­ti­vated Co­op­er­a­tion in a one-shot Pri­soner’s Dilemma

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24 points
4 comments5 min readLW link

FDT defects in a re­al­is­tic Twin Pri­son­ers’ Dilemma

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37 points
1 comment26 min readLW link

The Pla­ton­ist’s Dilemma: A Remix on the Pri­soner’s.

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5 points
2 comments5 min readLW link

The Calcu­lus of Nash Equilibria

Heighn1 Apr 2022 14:40 UTC
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Defend­ing Func­tional De­ci­sion Theory

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4 points
10 comments11 min readLW link

Co­or­di­nat­ing the Unequal Treaties

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Do­main The­ory and the Pri­soner’s Dilemma: FairBot

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In­tu­itions about utilities

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The Mu­tant Game—Rounds 31 to 90

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The Mu­tant Game—Rounds 11 to 30

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The Dar­win Game—Rounds 21-500

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Spe­cial­ized La­bor and Coun­ter­fac­tual Compensation

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The Dar­win Game

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Most Pri­soner’s Dilem­mas are Stag Hunts; Most Stag Hunts are Schel­ling Problems

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[Question] A way to beat su­per­ra­tional/​EDT agents?

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Clas­sify­ing games like the Pri­soner’s Dilemma

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(reasonableapproximation.net)

The Coun­ter­fac­tual Pri­soner’s Dilemma

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Pavlov Generalizes

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125 points
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(srconstantin.wordpress.com)

The Pavlov Strategy

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247 points
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Player of Games

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64 points
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Pri­son­ers’ Dilemma with Costs to Modeling

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123 points
20 comments7 min readLW link

A Differ­ent Pri­soner’s Dilemma

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9 points
1 comment5 min readLW link

Reflex­ive Or­a­cles and su­per­ra­tional­ity: pris­oner’s dilemma

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14 points
5 comments4 min readLW link

Agent-Si­mu­lates-Pre­dic­tor Var­i­ant of the Pri­soner’s Dilemma

Gram_Stone15 Dec 2015 7:17 UTC
11 points
34 comments2 min readLW link

2014 iter­ated pris­oner’s dilemma tour­na­ment results

tetronian230 Sep 2014 21:23 UTC
95 points
57 comments6 min readLW link

An­nounc­ing the 2014 pro­gram equil­ibrium iter­ated PD tournament

tetronian231 Jul 2014 12:24 UTC
38 points
63 comments1 min readLW link

Pri­soner’s Dilemma vs the Afterlife

DataPacRat24 Sep 2013 16:59 UTC
19 points
69 comments2 min readLW link

Co­op­er­at­ing with agents with differ­ent ideas of fair­ness, while re­sist­ing exploitation

Eliezer Yudkowsky16 Sep 2013 8:27 UTC
96 points
42 comments4 min readLW link

Iter­ated Pri­soner’s Dilemma in soft­ware patents

RolfAndreassen22 Jul 2013 20:22 UTC
6 points
8 comments2 min readLW link

Pri­soner’s dilemma tour­na­ment results

AlexMennen9 Jul 2013 20:50 UTC
54 points
124 comments1 min readLW link

[LINK] Can­tor’s the­o­rem, the pris­oner’s dilemma, and the halt­ing problem

Qiaochu_Yuan30 Jun 2013 20:26 UTC
22 points
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Ro­bust Co­op­er­a­tion in the Pri­soner’s Dilemma

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120 points
147 comments7 min readLW link

Pri­soner’s Dilemma (with visi­ble source code) Tournament

AlexMennen7 Jun 2013 8:30 UTC
73 points
236 comments2 min readLW link

Other pre­spec­tive on re­solv­ing the Pri­soner’s dilemma

Stuart_Armstrong4 Jun 2013 16:13 UTC
17 points
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Real World Solu­tions to Pri­son­ers’ Dilemmas

Scott Alexander3 Jul 2012 3:25 UTC
69 points
88 comments7 min readLW link

In­tro­duc­tion to Pri­son­ers’ Dilemma

Scott Alexander30 Jun 2012 0:54 UTC
61 points
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Paper: Iter­ated Pri­soner’s Dilemma con­tains strate­gies that dom­i­nate any evolu­tion­ary opponent

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Another Iter­ated Pri­soner’s Dilemma Tour­na­ment?

Andreas_Giger25 May 2012 14:16 UTC
14 points
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Pri­soner’s Dilemma on game show Golden Balls

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28 points
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New pris­oner’s dilemma and chicken tournament

benelliott14 Sep 2011 8:00 UTC
10 points
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Fixed-Length Selec­tive Iter­a­tive Pri­soner’s Dilemma Mechanics

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34 points
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Pri­soner’s Dilemma Tour­na­ment Results

prase6 Sep 2011 0:46 UTC
152 points
171 comments11 min readLW link

Pri­soner’s Dilemma as a Game The­ory Laboratory

prase25 Aug 2011 14:30 UTC
22 points
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Black­mail, Nukes and the Pri­soner’s Dilemma

Stuart_Armstrong10 Mar 2010 14:58 UTC
25 points
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The con­tinued mi­suse of the Pri­soner’s Dilemma

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34 points
70 comments2 min readLW link

Re-for­mal­iz­ing PD

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32 points
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The True Epistemic Pri­soner’s Dilemma

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24 points
72 comments2 min readLW link

The Epistemic Pri­soner’s Dilemma

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94 points
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New­comb’s Prob­lem vs. One-Shot Pri­soner’s Dilemma

Wei Dai7 Apr 2009 5:32 UTC
14 points
16 comments1 min readLW link

Fair­ness vs. Goodness

Eliezer Yudkowsky22 Feb 2009 20:22 UTC
15 points
21 comments1 min readLW link

The Truly Iter­ated Pri­soner’s Dilemma

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30 points
86 comments1 min readLW link

The True Pri­soner’s Dilemma

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205 points
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