Let me tell you a story it's a murder mystery it's a human drama
But it's also the most famous game theory problem ever proposed
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A call comes in to the station. There's been a murder the police rush out to the scene
The scene's clean no prints, no weapons, no leads. it's time to round up the usual suspects and see who talks
Word on the street is that Alice two guns McKenzie and Bob the knife Stefano did the deed?
Everyone knows it, but no one's willing to go on record and help us make the case
So it's time to bring in the suspects and see if we can get one of them to flip
Alice and Bob or as our files refer to them a and B are in two separate holding cells. The detectives are pressing them
They both have outstanding warrants for minor crimes
So if neither of them talk they're both going to still get a year in the slammer
But the cops don't want that. They need a conviction
So they offer both a and B the same deal if they rat out the other one
Then the one who did the squawkin gets to do the walkin no jail time and old warrants swept under the rug
But a and B know that if they both blame one another the cops are just going to call them both
Accessories to the murder and they're each going to get 10 years upstate
They have no way to communicate with each other and they're told they have an hour to decide
Time's up what do A and B do now assuming that there's no later repercussions like getting whacked for being a snitch
There's actually only one rational course of action here
But the reason this problem is so interesting is that that course of action is bad for everyone and it's why the prisoner's dilemma
serves to provide us with an understanding of why so often as a
Species or as a group we'll all agree that a particular course of action is bad and get proceed to do it
Anyway, how well let's look at the prisoner's dilemma more closely
You can think of it as a 2x2 grid with participants, choices, and outcomes
So as you can see here
if a turns over b and b
Stays silent a gets to walk out free and B gets a lifetime in jail
If a stays silent and B turns over a then a gets a lifetime in jail and B gets to walk free
If they both rat each other out though, they both spend 10 years in prison
And if both stay silent they both get off with only one year in jail
So what's the best option for the two of them to both stay?
Silent if they did that they'd serve a sum of 2 years total, but what's the best option for either of them individually?
Clearly to turn state's evidence because in this situation it's the choice
You'll never regret if your partners stay silent and you give up the goods on them
You get to walk away free, but if your partner tries to pin the murder on you, well at least this way
You're only going to be serving 10 years instead of a life sentence
If both players are playing optimally for themselves, then the only logical choice is to blame the other person
in fact
the only outcome where neither
Participant regrets their decision or feels as though they should have done something else when both players decisions are revealed is both a and B
blame each other
This is called a Nash equilibrium and it's something we might talk about in detail some other day
But you can see that outcome is actually terrible even though it's the only rational choice from each individual players perspective
This behavior comes into play all the time in teamwork based games ever play a mobo where one player hogs all the kills
This is why or if you've ever been in a game where one of the DPS characters spams
I need a shilling when it's clear
You should be healing the tank the root of that behavior can be found here, too
but nowhere is this clearer than in the real world and a great example of this is as a group the
overwhelming majority of nations agree
It would be best for the world if we banded together and did something about climate change
But let's look at that decision grid for any individual country
Your country can either opt in to lower its carbon output and pay for research or not
If you do and the rest of the world does not then you're baring the majority of the cost
your economy is weaker for not exploiting fossil fuels and climate change still isn't solved because it required a group effort if
you don't and the rest of the world does everyone else is left shouldering the cost of fighting climate change while you
Still get to reap your oily rewards if you and everyone else decide to actually fight climate change
Well, then you had to bear some of the costs but climate change might actually get solved and finally
Let's say you nor any other country tries to do anything at all
Well, at least you didn't have to pay any cost for trying so with all that in mind
What's the only rational answer from an individual actors perspective to not try?
Of course, this is terrible reasoning and it shows the fundamental problem with the prisoner's dilemma
It's not actually how real-world problems work. It's a simplification that ends up leaving out a lot
I mean on the positive side
There's all sorts of ancillary benefits to getting off fossil fuels or developing alternative energy technologies or if Alice rats out
Bob she's going to have to watch her back for the rest of her life, which is a pretty big negative
Unfortunately people in real-life situations do often think in terms of the prisoner's dilemma
Especially when those individuals involved are actually large bureaucratic organizations like governments or corporations
Which leads us to a world where individual actors are?
Continuously making decisions that appear to be the right one for them that really end up being worse for everyone
themselves included but with all that said we can actually end this episode on a positive note because a large number of
psychological studies have shown that at least when dealing with each other as active individuals as
Specific human beings where we know other human beings welfare are at stake. We tend to choose cooperation
Perhaps it's an evolutionary holdover. Perhaps it's out of some sense of fairness or community, but we do often opt to work together
Well beyond the bounds of any statistical noise, so in the spirit of that
Please don't be an Alice or a Bob or even a bad Genji because sometimes the best possible outcome requires a decision
That doesn't seem best for you. We'll see you next week
once again
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Subtitles by Dylan Miller
