“The Prisoners’ Dilemma” Dilemma

The Prisoners Dilemma is a example that comes up universally throughout majors, minors, and whatever classes a student can hope to find themselves in at most higher level learning institutions. Whether that be philosophy, psychology, economics, general mathematics, or even game theory. For such a widely referenced example, it must be very important and of course, it is agreed upon, right? Well…

The basic break down of the dilemma is as follows, two prisoners have been arrested involved in some from of joint crime. They are told, separately, that if one confesses and the other does not that the one who does will get a payoff while the other will then receive a heavily punishment. In the case that both confess then each will get a lighter sentence, however, if neither confesses then they will both get the lightest sentence. What creates the dilemma is that they are being interrogated separately which means they cannot be sure what their partner is doing. So, what is the best course of action? Do they turn on their partner or do they risk taking the fall for everything?

Unlike many of the games covered over the course of this semester, the Prisoners’ Dilemma comes with an additional dilemma. The best course of action seems to change based on who you ask. Upon talking with my professor, even she seemed to find that other professors that taught the dilemma had different ideas one which is the naive choice versus which is the experienced one. That is not even the only issue that comes into play when discussing this game. Does the optimal strategy change when the game is repeated? Additionally, does it change more depending on how many times it is played?

I chose this game to talk about this week because I felt as it is not often that a game brings up so much discussion on what is the best strategy. Usually, the numbers are able to tell the whole story. However, in this case everything from morality to evolutionary psychology plays a role in what is the best move in a given scenario. Personally, I believe the discussion raised by “The Prisoners’ Dilemma” dilemma is one of the most interesting topics covered so far in game theory.