Cooperation with random interactions and without memory or “tags”

Authored by H Fort

Date Published: 2003-03

Sponsors: No sponsors listed

Platforms: No platforms listed

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Mathematical description

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

The self-organization into cooperative regimes of a system of “selfish” agents playing the pairwise Prisoner's Dilemma game (PDG) is analyzed using a simple agent-based model. At each time step t, the agents divide into those who cooperate (C) and those who defect (D). The agents have no memory and use strategies not based on direct reciprocity nor `tags'. Only one dynamical variable is assigned to each agent, namely his income at time t, delta C(t), obtained by playing the PDG with a partner chosen at random. A simple adapting strategy for the behavior of the agents (C or D) is shown to give rise, for a wide variety of PD payoff matrices, to a cooperative regime resistant to `always D' strategy.

Tags

game theory Cooperation prisoner's dilemma complex adaptive agents evolutionary model