

Prisoner's Dilemma situation in reality show 'The Bachelor Pad' - hardik
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)

======
cduan
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
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....](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.43.8408&rep=rep1&type=p)

~~~
greenlblue
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.

------
ugh
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=p3Uos2fzIJ0&NR=1&feature=fvwp)
— <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.)

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

~~~
ugh
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
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.

~~~
ct
Just move the player position to the end to the see the result instead of
waiting 10 mins.

