Prisoner's Dilemma situation in reality show 'The Bachelor Pad'

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/the-prisoners-dilemma-makes-a-reality-tv-appearance/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+FreakonomicsBlog+(Freakonomics+Blog)

by hardik • 16 years ago

15 8 16 years ago

freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com

ugh2• 16 years ago

The prisoner dilemma makes for good television, it’s as simple as that. See also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3Uos2fzIJ0&NR=1&feat... — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9VpKrwz9wU#t=2m37s

(Those all aren’t ‘perfect’ prisoners dilemmas, i.e. exactly like the gedankenexperiment because things like reputation can come into play or because the players can communicate.)

cduan• 16 years ago

So if you picked "keep" you have a chance at an extra $125,000. But you also look like a selfish bastard on national TV, you'll probably lose a lot of friends, and whatever relationship you had going with your housemate (I assume there was something, I didn't watch the show) is now gone. I think those outweigh the extra hundred-odd grand.

The moral of the story is that ongoing relationships can break the prisoner's dilemma. This could be anything from an emotional relationship to a business contract to mere public scrutiny. The prisoner's dilemma is really only a dilemma if it is a true one-shot game, or if the monetary amounts are enough to overcome these other factors.

olalonde• 16 years ago

It would be interesting to simulate the prisoner's dilemma through AI agents and see if they develop a sense of trust over time. Maybe they would adopt a cooperative strategy eventually.

Edit: This paper seems to go in that direction http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.43....

greenlblue• 16 years ago

There is an iterated version of the prisoner's dilemma and you don't need a clever AI to win. The name of the strategy is tit for tat and it basically wins over the long run.

japaget• 16 years ago

To save you from having to watch the video, both contestants picked "Share", so they split the $250K equally.

ugh2• 16 years ago

Argh! Why would you write a comment like that?

Providing short summaries for those who don’t want to watch long videos is certainly laudable but the interesting information in this case would be the exact rules or other details of this format (which the original submission certainly doesn’t provide) but certainly not the specific decisions made by the contestants. That’s irrelevant information in the context of the submission and at the same time you manage to spoil it for all those who actually want to watch the whole video.

I’m sorry, but I have to downvote your comment, if only to hide it.

jnorthrop• 16 years ago

Personally I came here looking for that exact comment. I didn't want to watch 10 minutes of the show to find out. I see your point, and "SPOILER" would have been appropriate, but it was a helpful comment to me.

Prisoner's Dilemma situation in reality show 'The Bachelor Pad'

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