I think the answer is obvious and I am dismayed to not see it reflected in the comments. Nothing about the mathematics changes. If you’re in a one-shot scenario or fixed number of rounds, you defect. If you’re in a noisy iterated prisoner’s dilemma with an unknown number of rounds—you have to cooperate. It doesn’t matter that it might seem evil to do so. What has to be understood is that if your opponent is an intelligent agent, playing (D, C) repeatedly was never an option you had to begin with.
The opponent will adapt and respond to your strategy. So, at least in the iterated or superrational case, we’re not actually going to be able to get the benefits of defection. The options you actually have are (C, C) or (D, D). Of these two, I would choose (C, C) and I hope you would too.
I think the takeaway I’ve always had from this post is that you can’t cheat gravity and you can’t cheat decision theory either—but you may really want to..
I think the answer is obvious and I am dismayed to not see it reflected in the comments. Nothing about the mathematics changes. If you’re in a one-shot scenario or fixed number of rounds, you defect. If you’re in a noisy iterated prisoner’s dilemma with an unknown number of rounds—you have to cooperate. It doesn’t matter that it might seem evil to do so. What has to be understood is that if your opponent is an intelligent agent, playing (D, C) repeatedly was never an option you had to begin with.
The opponent will adapt and respond to your strategy. So, at least in the iterated or superrational case, we’re not actually going to be able to get the benefits of defection. The options you actually have are (C, C) or (D, D). Of these two, I would choose (C, C) and I hope you would too.
I think the takeaway I’ve always had from this post is that you can’t cheat gravity and you can’t cheat decision theory either—but you may really want to..