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Prisoner's Dilemma
This page introduces the concept of a Prisoner's Dilemma. Additional information
can be found in Douglas R. Hofstadter's book
Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern, and my article
Offshoring: Individual Short-Term Gain versus Collective Long-Term Loss?
published in IEEE IT Professional, July-August 2005.
Payoff Matrix
R is the reward, the total payoff for mutual cooperation between Participant A and
Participant B.
Prisoner's Dilemma is a topic within Game Theory, and Game Theory is a topic within
Applied Mathematics.
Prisoner's Dilemma describes in Game Theory terms a transaction between two participants,
and the resulting payoff, provided two prerequisites are satisfied (see below). The
transaction can be either one time or multiple iterations.
The payoff is represented by a payoff matrix.
Participant A is used to indicate the first participant, Participant B is
used to indicate the second participant.
The letters T, R, P, S are used to represent the payoff exchanged
between Participant A and Participant B.
T is the temptation payoff for defecting with its resulting higher payoff for the defector.
Defection occurs when an individual, group, or organization acting in
S is the sucker's payoff that the cooperating participant receives when the other
participant defects.
P is the punishment for mutual defection.
The two prerequisites mentioned above are:
The first simply states it is more profitable for a participant to defect
than cooperate
for a single transaction. As an example, a business might garner greater profits by
defecting rather than by cooperating (at least in the short term). It
would do so without
any moral concern, as long as the transaction did not involve deception or fraud.
The second states that the average of the temptation for defecting and the
sucker's
payoff is less than the reward for mutual cooperation. For example, by keeping key
operations in house instead of offshoring, a business could retain its key corporate
asset - knowledge (skills, intellect, creativity, and know-how of individuals) in the
organization, creating value for the customer ("Tougher Than Ever: The Information Age
Makes Management More Complex, Not Simpler," Intelligent Enterprise,
30 Oct. 2002, p. 14). In other words, a growing economy producing
the most wealth overall is based on cooperation, not defection.
The payoff matrix and the central issue are the characteristics identifying a case
of Prisoner's Dilemma. Prisoner's Dilemma is a paradox with practical
applications - its central issue is, Does logic prevent cooperation?
