CSSE Seminar Series (CSSESS)
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Seminar
Computer Simulation of Multi-Person Social Dilemmas.
Speaker: Prof. Miklos Szilagyi.
Institute: Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Arizona (USA).
Time/Place: 10:00 AM, Thur, 13 Nov, in Room 031, Erskine Building.
Abstract
We will systematically present the problem of various N-person Prisoners' Dilemma games and some of their possible solutions. Thirteen characteristics of the game will be discussed. The role of the payoff curves, personalities, and neighbourhood have been investigated. We report computer simulation experiments based on our new agent-based simulation tool to model social and economic situations for the case of large numbers of not necessarily rational decision-makers.
Our model has a number of user-defined parameters such as the size and shape of the simulation environment, the definition of neighbourhood, the payoff (reward/penalty) functions, the learning rules, the agents' personalities, and the initial conditions. We have performed a series of simulation experiments with various combinations of these parameters. Investigations of realistic (non-dyadic) situations in which agents have various personalities show interesting new results. For the case of Pavlovian agents the game has two non-trivial but remarkably regular solutions. For a wide range of initial conditions, the number of co-operators oscillates around a relatively small value. When the initial aggregate co-operation probability is above a certain value, the solutions tend to reach well-defined constant values that are dependent on the initial values.
For other types of agents the solutions show interesting chaos-like behaviour. Examples of non-uniform distributions and mixed personalities will also be presented. All solutions strongly depend on the choice of parameter values. We will also present a model where the choice of actions is continuous. New ideas will be discussed on a realistic representation of human personalities.
Biography
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