I do research in cooperation and game theory, including some work on altruism, and also some hard science work. Everyone looks at the Rorschach blot of human behavior and sees something different. Most of the disagreements have never been settled. Even experiment does not completely settle them.
My experience from having children and observing them in the first few months of life is more definitive. They come with values and personal traits that are not very malleable, and not directly traceable to parents. Sometimes grandparents (who were already dead, so it had to be genetic).
My experience with A.I. researchers is that they are looking for a shortcut. No one’s career will permit raising an experimental AI as a child. The tech of the AI would be obsolete before the experiment was complete. This post is wishful thinking that a shortcut is available. It is speculative, anecdotal, and short on references to careful experiment. Good luck with that.
A related phenomenon, which I have encountered in life but not in systematic research, is that an exceptionally valuable turn is treated as a last turn, and someone will defect. This was evident in at least two states during the tobacco lawsuits. In Texas, the attorney general went to jail for cheating. In Mississippi, where some relatives of mine were on the legal team, one of the lawyers tried to claim all the credit, to the extent they got involved in a separate lawsuit against each other, and felt more animosity than against the tobacco company lawyers (for whom it was not a last turn, they were planning to survive). (The claimant later went to jail but not for that, for unrelated bribery).
I was doing a bit of web research on the last turn dilemma when I found your post. The last turn dilemma is that it is rational to defect on the first turn in finite games, but human behavior is not consistent with that (exceptions for if game theory is explained, or players have high IQ and figure it out). The puzzle is to explain why.
I believe the components of an answer may be present in existing research. But not tied together. A rather complex experiment would be required for verification which I’m not equipped to perform. If any of you would like to discuss this, get in touch with me. I don’t really want to discuss a possible paper in a forum. https://shulerresearch.wordpress.com/ (contact form)