Scan barcode
jpowerj's review
3.0
Gah... how can a book on such an interesting+important+relevant+mind-blowing topic be so *boring*? :( I'll stick with Sam Bowles' "Microeconomics" among other works that reference this one
raoul_g's review
5.0
This book is wholly and totally concerned with the (iterated) Prisoner's Dilemma. In case you don't know, the Prisoner's Dilemma is a mathematical game analyzed in Game Theory. Albert W. Tucker presented it as follows:
"Two members of a criminal organization are arrested and imprisoned. Each prisoner is in solitary confinement with no means of communicating with the other. The prosecutors lack sufficient evidence to convict the pair on the principal charge, but they have enough to convict both on a lesser charge. Simultaneously, the prosecutors offer each prisoner a bargain. Each prisoner is given the opportunity either to betray the other by testifying that the other committed the crime, or to cooperate with the other by remaining silent. The possible outcomes are:
The punishments could of course also be configured differently. But what makes this situation really interesting is to let these two prisoners meet again and again in the same situation while they are fully aware of the actions the other prisoner took in the past interactions. This, then, is called the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma.
Axelrod wanted to know which strategies would get the best result in such an iterated game, especially when the total number of rounds to be played would not be known by the players in advance. To find this out he organized a tournament in which people from different disciplines should submit strategies to be used by the players in the game. He then let those strategies play against each other.
Although there is no strategy that always gets the best result, as the success is dependent on the kind of strategy the other player is using, one strategy has emerged as a clear winner in Axelrod's tournaments. This strategy is called Tit for Tat. This strategy is very simple and works like this: the player initially cooperates and afterwards always replicates the action of the other player in the last move. This means there is always an equivalent retaliation for defections. But what makes this strategy so successful? First of all, it is nice: It is never the first to defect which means it prevents unnecessary trouble (for example if the other player also uses a nice strategy). The second thing is, it is provocable: If it is defected against, it retaliates with the next occasion, which should discourage the other side from continuing defecting. Another important property of the strategy is that it is forgiving, meaning it does not keep defecting if the other side is cooperating after defection. This allows to restore mutual cooperation. Finally, Tit for Tat is a clear and easy to recognize strategy. Once the other player sees the pattern behind the strategy, it can easily realize that cooperation is the best way of dealing with it.
You might think that these theoretical games are far removed from reality, but the author successfully shows that this is not the case. A real-life example of the Prisoner's Dilemma was seen in the trench warfare in France during WW1. There a live-and-let-live system, that is described in more detail in the book, emerged between the enemy fronts. This shows that cooperation can emerge even between antagonists under suitable circumstances.
Furthermore, there are also a great deal of interesting examples from the field of biology. The author puts cooperation in a evolutionary perspective and shows how it is likely to have evolved even in environments of competition and selfish actors.
What starts as interesting theoretical games in the first half of book, turns into solid wisdom applicable to many situations in life in the last chapters. While most people think about life as a zero-sum game, actually most of the time this is not the case. There are countless situations where both sides can do well and mutual cooperation would be possible. The only thing standing in the way of this often times is envy and the thinking that one must be more successful than the other to be successful. The results of the tournament teach an important lesson here:
"TIT FOR TAT achieves either the same score as the other player, or a little less. TIT FOR TAT won the tournament, not by beating the other player, but by eliciting behavior from the other player which allowed both to do well. TIT FOR TAT was so consistent at eliciting mutually rewarding outcomes that it attained a higher overall score than any other strategy."
Besides giving the reader a small taste of the world of game theory, this book offers a lens through which many interactions can be understood and it proposes concrete measures to increase the chances for successful cooperation in different situations. It also makes for an overall interesting read and is still very relevant even though it was published in 1984.
"Two members of a criminal organization are arrested and imprisoned. Each prisoner is in solitary confinement with no means of communicating with the other. The prosecutors lack sufficient evidence to convict the pair on the principal charge, but they have enough to convict both on a lesser charge. Simultaneously, the prosecutors offer each prisoner a bargain. Each prisoner is given the opportunity either to betray the other by testifying that the other committed the crime, or to cooperate with the other by remaining silent. The possible outcomes are:
- If A and B each betray the other, each of them serves two years in prison
- If A betrays B but B remains silent, A will be set free and B will serve three years in prison
- If A remains silent but B betrays A, A will serve three years in prison and B will be set free
- If A and B both remain silent, both of them will serve only one year in prison (on the lesser charge)".
The punishments could of course also be configured differently. But what makes this situation really interesting is to let these two prisoners meet again and again in the same situation while they are fully aware of the actions the other prisoner took in the past interactions. This, then, is called the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma.
Axelrod wanted to know which strategies would get the best result in such an iterated game, especially when the total number of rounds to be played would not be known by the players in advance. To find this out he organized a tournament in which people from different disciplines should submit strategies to be used by the players in the game. He then let those strategies play against each other.
Although there is no strategy that always gets the best result, as the success is dependent on the kind of strategy the other player is using, one strategy has emerged as a clear winner in Axelrod's tournaments. This strategy is called Tit for Tat. This strategy is very simple and works like this: the player initially cooperates and afterwards always replicates the action of the other player in the last move. This means there is always an equivalent retaliation for defections. But what makes this strategy so successful? First of all, it is nice: It is never the first to defect which means it prevents unnecessary trouble (for example if the other player also uses a nice strategy). The second thing is, it is provocable: If it is defected against, it retaliates with the next occasion, which should discourage the other side from continuing defecting. Another important property of the strategy is that it is forgiving, meaning it does not keep defecting if the other side is cooperating after defection. This allows to restore mutual cooperation. Finally, Tit for Tat is a clear and easy to recognize strategy. Once the other player sees the pattern behind the strategy, it can easily realize that cooperation is the best way of dealing with it.
You might think that these theoretical games are far removed from reality, but the author successfully shows that this is not the case. A real-life example of the Prisoner's Dilemma was seen in the trench warfare in France during WW1. There a live-and-let-live system, that is described in more detail in the book, emerged between the enemy fronts. This shows that cooperation can emerge even between antagonists under suitable circumstances.
Furthermore, there are also a great deal of interesting examples from the field of biology. The author puts cooperation in a evolutionary perspective and shows how it is likely to have evolved even in environments of competition and selfish actors.
What starts as interesting theoretical games in the first half of book, turns into solid wisdom applicable to many situations in life in the last chapters. While most people think about life as a zero-sum game, actually most of the time this is not the case. There are countless situations where both sides can do well and mutual cooperation would be possible. The only thing standing in the way of this often times is envy and the thinking that one must be more successful than the other to be successful. The results of the tournament teach an important lesson here:
"TIT FOR TAT achieves either the same score as the other player, or a little less. TIT FOR TAT won the tournament, not by beating the other player, but by eliciting behavior from the other player which allowed both to do well. TIT FOR TAT was so consistent at eliciting mutually rewarding outcomes that it attained a higher overall score than any other strategy."
Besides giving the reader a small taste of the world of game theory, this book offers a lens through which many interactions can be understood and it proposes concrete measures to increase the chances for successful cooperation in different situations. It also makes for an overall interesting read and is still very relevant even though it was published in 1984.
benjamin_manning's review
5.0
Simply sensational - I'm obsessed. Finished this material in my game theory course a few weeks ago and the prof recommended this book. This book is a full dive into iterated prisoner's dilemmas (basically playing some non-zero sum game over and over) to see what the best behavior for people is over the long term in possibilities where they can cooperate versus try to take advantage of one another. Axelrod makes some pretty tough material completely successful to those without mathematical inclination and lays out some really clever real world applications to game theory.
A few things I learned:
1. In order to effectively cooperate, one must not be too complicated in what they're doing! I never though about this before, but it makes sense. For other people to want to continually engage with you you, they have to understand you.
2. Soldiers in the trenches of world war I used to set up unofficial treaties on the front lines, these came about almost entirely spontaneously and then continued for long periods of times since the same units were facing each other over and over; fascinating.
3. While I loved this book, I'll admit that I now notice (courtesy of Duncan Watts) that Axelrod offers a lot of VERY definitive explanations when they might not totally be warranted about why and when cooperation happens. This are the "everything is obvious" afterwards type understanding of things that are difficult to have causal attribution. It's REALLY easy to think one knows why something occurs, even with compelling evidence, yet totally be wrong and I think that some of Axelrod's explanations of real-world cooperation might suffer from this problem a bit.
A few things I learned:
1. In order to effectively cooperate, one must not be too complicated in what they're doing! I never though about this before, but it makes sense. For other people to want to continually engage with you you, they have to understand you.
2. Soldiers in the trenches of world war I used to set up unofficial treaties on the front lines, these came about almost entirely spontaneously and then continued for long periods of times since the same units were facing each other over and over; fascinating.
3. While I loved this book, I'll admit that I now notice (courtesy of Duncan Watts) that Axelrod offers a lot of VERY definitive explanations when they might not totally be warranted about why and when cooperation happens. This are the "everything is obvious" afterwards type understanding of things that are difficult to have causal attribution. It's REALLY easy to think one knows why something occurs, even with compelling evidence, yet totally be wrong and I think that some of Axelrod's explanations of real-world cooperation might suffer from this problem a bit.
tbauman's review
5.0
Many of my favorite non-fiction books are those that leave you feeling like an expert in the topic. This is one of those books.
This book is about a game with two players, each of which chooses one of two moves: cooperate or defect. You might recognize this game as the prisoner's dilemma. I won't go into the details of what the prisoner's dilemma is, but the "correct" strategy to the game is to always defect. The game is often seen as an example of how selfishness is inevitable, even though cooperation is better for everyone. When you play the game repeatedly with the same opponent, though, something amazing happens: cooperation suddenly becomes a good strategy.
Axelrod ran several tournaments of strategies and found that, time and time again, a simple "tit-for-tat" strategy--cooperate if the other player just cooperated, and defect if the other player just defected--was the most effective. In other words, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" combined with "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." "Tit-for-tat" is at the core of human morality--and Axelrod proves that it has a number of properties that make it extremely advantageous. (The ones that I can remember: It starts out being nice, it retaliates quickly, it forgives just as quickly, it coordinates very well with itself, it is extremely predictable for the other player. In short: the other player begins to play against itself, so the only solution is to cooperate.) The book also dives into examples of iterated prisoner's dilemma in biology, business, politics, and war.
This book gives deep insights into a simple game that can be found almost everywhere if you look for it.
This book is about a game with two players, each of which chooses one of two moves: cooperate or defect. You might recognize this game as the prisoner's dilemma. I won't go into the details of what the prisoner's dilemma is, but the "correct" strategy to the game is to always defect. The game is often seen as an example of how selfishness is inevitable, even though cooperation is better for everyone. When you play the game repeatedly with the same opponent, though, something amazing happens: cooperation suddenly becomes a good strategy.
Axelrod ran several tournaments of strategies and found that, time and time again, a simple "tit-for-tat" strategy--cooperate if the other player just cooperated, and defect if the other player just defected--was the most effective. In other words, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" combined with "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." "Tit-for-tat" is at the core of human morality--and Axelrod proves that it has a number of properties that make it extremely advantageous. (The ones that I can remember: It starts out being nice, it retaliates quickly, it forgives just as quickly, it coordinates very well with itself, it is extremely predictable for the other player. In short: the other player begins to play against itself, so the only solution is to cooperate.) The book also dives into examples of iterated prisoner's dilemma in biology, business, politics, and war.
This book gives deep insights into a simple game that can be found almost everywhere if you look for it.
tinaathena's review
Lots of good use cases and did help "dumb down" game theory and different examples of why "tit for tat" and reciprocity are such effective tools for cooperation. Not my flavour for writing, very academic and analytical (which, fair.) but daaaaamn does the book repeat key concepts over and over again. Truly could have shaved at least 20-30 pages off the book if it did not do so much re-iterating.
inquiry_from_an_anti_library's review
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Cooperation can occur in the most austere situation. Cooperation does not require both parties to be either friend or have a brain. Cooperation does require a chance that each party will meet in the future, but a chance future meeting is not sufficient. Axelrod uses situations where it is always better to defect in the short-term than cooperate, yet provides ways and reasons why parties still cooperate rather than defect. The generic representation for this situation is the Prisoners Dilemma.
The Prisoners Dilemma game comes from game theory and is the core for the book. Each player has a strategic incentive to defect, but the outcome is better for both players to cooperate than to defect. Prisoners Dilemma is not a zero-sum game which means a gain from one party does not directly takes from other in this game. Both players can benefit and lose depending on their individual choice and the other players simultaneous choice. The payoffs from the game are required to fit a rule specified for the short-term temptation to defect and the better payoffs for mutual cooperation than mutual defection, but the payoffs need not be equal or comparable.
A computer tournament was played where individuals sent in code representative of a strategy to cooperate or defect decisions in an iterated Prisoners Dilemma. The strategy that won is called Tit for Tat, meaning this code would reciprocate every cooperation and defection used by the opponent in the prior turn. The strategy may not have gotten the best scores compared with others, but it got the highest average. A simple reciprocity rule may be robust, but it certainly is not the best given different conditions. Under certain conditions, Tit for Tat actually made both players worse off due to an echo of defections. Tit for Tat was used as a base strategy for the book. Lessons drawn from why this strategy won was due to it being a nice strategy, easy to recognize, and non-exploitability.
A nice strategy means that the strategy cooperates on the first decision and is never the first to defect. Not nice strategies usually defect on the first decision and future ones. Defecting initially usually causes both players to do worse due to reciprocation of mutual defection for the rest of the game. In a non-zero-sum game like Prisoners Dilemma, having an easily recognized strategy means that the other player can adept to the strategy. If a strategy is exploitable, it provides an incentive for the opponent to defect without reciprocity of a defection.
There are many ways to promote cooperation such as more interactions between players, being provoked, forgiveness, and changing the playoffs. More interactions between players would mean that each player would believe they would meet again in the future. If there are future meetings, it increases the cost of defection thereby making cooperation more likely. Both cooperation and defection must be reciprocated. Being provoked means that a defection by one player will result in a defection from the other at some stage. If the player is not provoked then the player will most likely see much more defections from the other. Forgiveness to prior defections is needed in order to prevent mutual recrimination. The payoffs of the game can actually be changed by having an outsider such as government or group provide a cost to defection, thereby lessening the temptation to defect.
This book may seek to explain how cooperation works and is more beneficial for all, but Axelrod does express that cooperation may not be best for everyone else. In some circumstances such as in business collusion, cooperation may be good for the players but at the expense of everyone else. To reduce unwanted cooperation, all that is needed is to take the reverse of cooperation building factors. The best example provided how cooperation is built with enemies and how cooperation was reversed was provided by trench warfare during WW1. The soldiers on each side of the trench had developed a live and let live strategy whereby they would shoot to miss rather than to kill. Enemies they were, but due to a multitude of cooperative building factors, trying not to kill each other was reciprocated. Each side’s leaders did not want the soldiers cooperating with their enemy.
A slight problem with the book is that the even though Prisoners Dilemma is explained in detail, the framework for game theory is left out. Unexplained assumptions and reasons can cause a misunderstanding if the reader has no prior knowledge of basic game theory. A missed detail is that by making the Prisoners Dilemma iterated, it changed the very dilemma by changing the payoffs. A problem with game theory is that the decisions and strategies are deterministic. Either to cooperate or defect rather than how to cooperate or defect. Incorporating the real situation details for the generic game theory representation is needed to make them useful.
With a high enough chance of meetings reoccurring in the future, there is no single best strategy. The best strategy can be found via trial and error. Axelrod shows how cooperation can emerge and be sustained. Given a readiness to defect, as tempting as the payoff may be initially, can be impeded by an expectation of reciprocity and future defection by everyone.
The Prisoners Dilemma game comes from game theory and is the core for the book. Each player has a strategic incentive to defect, but the outcome is better for both players to cooperate than to defect. Prisoners Dilemma is not a zero-sum game which means a gain from one party does not directly takes from other in this game. Both players can benefit and lose depending on their individual choice and the other players simultaneous choice. The payoffs from the game are required to fit a rule specified for the short-term temptation to defect and the better payoffs for mutual cooperation than mutual defection, but the payoffs need not be equal or comparable.
A computer tournament was played where individuals sent in code representative of a strategy to cooperate or defect decisions in an iterated Prisoners Dilemma. The strategy that won is called Tit for Tat, meaning this code would reciprocate every cooperation and defection used by the opponent in the prior turn. The strategy may not have gotten the best scores compared with others, but it got the highest average. A simple reciprocity rule may be robust, but it certainly is not the best given different conditions. Under certain conditions, Tit for Tat actually made both players worse off due to an echo of defections. Tit for Tat was used as a base strategy for the book. Lessons drawn from why this strategy won was due to it being a nice strategy, easy to recognize, and non-exploitability.
A nice strategy means that the strategy cooperates on the first decision and is never the first to defect. Not nice strategies usually defect on the first decision and future ones. Defecting initially usually causes both players to do worse due to reciprocation of mutual defection for the rest of the game. In a non-zero-sum game like Prisoners Dilemma, having an easily recognized strategy means that the other player can adept to the strategy. If a strategy is exploitable, it provides an incentive for the opponent to defect without reciprocity of a defection.
There are many ways to promote cooperation such as more interactions between players, being provoked, forgiveness, and changing the playoffs. More interactions between players would mean that each player would believe they would meet again in the future. If there are future meetings, it increases the cost of defection thereby making cooperation more likely. Both cooperation and defection must be reciprocated. Being provoked means that a defection by one player will result in a defection from the other at some stage. If the player is not provoked then the player will most likely see much more defections from the other. Forgiveness to prior defections is needed in order to prevent mutual recrimination. The payoffs of the game can actually be changed by having an outsider such as government or group provide a cost to defection, thereby lessening the temptation to defect.
This book may seek to explain how cooperation works and is more beneficial for all, but Axelrod does express that cooperation may not be best for everyone else. In some circumstances such as in business collusion, cooperation may be good for the players but at the expense of everyone else. To reduce unwanted cooperation, all that is needed is to take the reverse of cooperation building factors. The best example provided how cooperation is built with enemies and how cooperation was reversed was provided by trench warfare during WW1. The soldiers on each side of the trench had developed a live and let live strategy whereby they would shoot to miss rather than to kill. Enemies they were, but due to a multitude of cooperative building factors, trying not to kill each other was reciprocated. Each side’s leaders did not want the soldiers cooperating with their enemy.
A slight problem with the book is that the even though Prisoners Dilemma is explained in detail, the framework for game theory is left out. Unexplained assumptions and reasons can cause a misunderstanding if the reader has no prior knowledge of basic game theory. A missed detail is that by making the Prisoners Dilemma iterated, it changed the very dilemma by changing the payoffs. A problem with game theory is that the decisions and strategies are deterministic. Either to cooperate or defect rather than how to cooperate or defect. Incorporating the real situation details for the generic game theory representation is needed to make them useful.
With a high enough chance of meetings reoccurring in the future, there is no single best strategy. The best strategy can be found via trial and error. Axelrod shows how cooperation can emerge and be sustained. Given a readiness to defect, as tempting as the payoff may be initially, can be impeded by an expectation of reciprocity and future defection by everyone.
ivybeans's review
4.0
Good discussion of the iterative prisoner dilemma game and how the tit-for-tat strategy seems to be the best strategy for the participants. This is extrapolated to human cooperation as opposed to strict self-interest in the prisoner's dilemma game which leads to bad results for both participants. I would like to read Richard Dawkins Selfish Gene sometime soon which I think builds on this result.
More...