Eli5: Why is Prisoners Dilemma considered a Dilemma?
In: 46
So there are those math problems when you have to give the result of 5+5, but instead of asking 5+5, they tell a story. Like, Johnny had 5 apples, and later his friend Jim gave him another 5 apples, how many apples does Johnny have now. You can give this story a title, like Johnny’s apples, but in the end it’s 5+5.
The prisoner’s dilemma has this dilemma in the title because the story is given as a dilemma of a person. Otherwise in the core it’s just the following math: two actors act simultaneously, they are incentivised to act selfish as asymmetric selfishness awards the best individual score for the selfish and the individual worst score to the cooperative actor. But if they both act selfish, the system punishes them with the worst total score, while the best system level total score is gained with symmetrical cooperation.
The numerical values (0,1, 8, 12 in the original) are arbitrary and can change as long as:
– the symmetrical cooperation (1 penalty) gives you worse personal score than you can reach if you’re on the winning end of asymmetry (0 penalty).
– the total system value of symmetrical cooperation is less than any other total value (1+1=2 vs 12 vs 16)
– the symmetrical non-cooperation (8) gives you personally better than the loser end of asymmetry (12).
– and the symmetrical non-cooperation gives the worse total value (16 vs 12 vs 2).
If these are all met in a two-actor situation, you have a prisoner’s dilemma.
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