Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Joker's (flawed?) game theory



Should the Joker have predicted this outcome using game theory?  Construct payoffs such that this is an equilibrium.  

HT:  David S.

2 comments:

  1. The game the Joker thought he had orchestrated paid off as follows:
    Prisoners:
    Detonate Don't
    Civilians:
    Detonate 0, 0 1, 0

    Don't 0, 1 0, 0

    Unfortunately for the Joker, he underestimated the compassion of each group and didn't realize that living as murderers was a worse payoff than not living at all, and the game changed to:


    Prisoners:
    Detonate Don't
    Civilians:
    Detonate 0, 0 1, 2

    Don't 2, 1 2, 2

    So if the Joker knew that all the participants in the game preferred being moral to living, he could have predicted that neither would blow up the other ship.

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  2. I agree with Tom. If you construct it as a traditional game of chicken, first mover advantage would lead one of the groups to trigger the detonator. I think what changes the calculation is that it's not just a choice of live or die as a group. A single individual has to pull the trigger, so it's a choice to live or murder a ferry full of people, which changes the payoffs.

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