Introduction
The Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) acts as a standard instance of a contest examined in game theory that demonstrates the reason behind two rational persons failing to cooperate even when it seems that it is in the best interests of both to collaborate. It was generated in 1950 by Melvin Dresher and Merrill Flood while they were employees of Research ANd Development (RAND Corporation) (Gaudesi et al. 288-290). Prisoner’s Dilemma comprises of two players with every one of them normally having two approaches that match with those of the opponent. Similar to other contests in the game theory, Prisoner’s Dilemma presumes that the two players are rational and will choose the most favorable tactic with the aim of realizing the maximum possible gain. In PD, the players play simultaneously with none of them being aware of the choice of the opponent and are left to believe that the other will also make a choice that favors them.
Main body
A distinguishing attribute of Prisoner’s Dilemma is that every player is free to select the dominant approach, and the players’ choices usually lead to a worse outcome when judged against what would ensue if the two players had cooperated. Instances of PD may involve other forms of players and not just prisoners as the name suggests. Collaborating to choose the dominated plan, which will result in the most favorable result, is referred to as the cooperative approach while choosing a different choice is a defecting move (Gaudesi et al. 289-292). In the Prisoner’s Dilemma, if one person chooses to cooperate and the opponent defects, the one who cooperates gets the worst outcome while the opponent enjoys the best.
An example of the Prisoner’s Dilemma may entail prison term rewards. Two criminals (X and Y) who had cooperated in a felony are detained. They are kept in solitary incarceration devoid of any chance to talk to one another. The two criminals are offered a bargain at the same time though separately. They are presented with the option of either giving evidence that the other engaged in crime (betraying) or staying silent. The offer is: If criminal X and Y betray one another, they serve two years’ prison term each. When criminal X betrays Y while Y stays silent, X is to be freed but Y is to have a 3 years’ prison term and vice versa. Finally, if they both choose to stay silent, they are to have a one-year prison term each.
Under the Prisoner’s Dilemma, it may be implied that the criminals do not have the chance to reprimand or reward their colleagues but themselves, and their choices have no effect on their future reputation. Since the betrayal of a colleague presents a better outcome when judged against a failed attempt to cooperate, any purely rational self-centered criminal will choose betrayal. This signifies that the most common outcome is a case where the two end up betraying one another. In a real sense, people portray complete biasness toward cooperative conduct in PD regardless of what is offered in a model of rational egocentric action (Gaudesi et al. 293-294).
Conclusion
PD was created by Melvin Dresher and Merrill as a game that illustrates why rational individuals chose to defect even when cooperating offers a greater reward. The players do not have the chance to know what the opponent is to choose and only assume that they will also make a selection in their favor. The exciting part of PD is that seeking the reward self-interestedly just results in both prayers defecting and getting a worse outcome than they would have received if they had chosen to cooperate.
Work Cited
Gaudesi, Marco, et al. “Exploiting Evolutionary Modeling to Prevail in Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma Tournaments.” IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, vol. 8, no. 3, 2016, pp. 288-300.