Abstract
Arrow’s information paradox features the most radical kind of information asymmetry by diagnosing an inherent conflict between two parties inclined to exchange information. In this paper, we argue that this paradox is more richly textured than generally supposed by current economic discussion on it and that its meaning encroaches on philosophy. In particular, we uncovers the ‘epistemic’ and more genuine version of the paradox, which looms on our cognitive lives like a sort of tax on curiosity. Finally, we sketch the relation between Arrow’s information paradox and the notion of zero-knowledge proofs in cryptography: roughly speaking, zero-knowledge proofs are protocols that enable a prover to convince a verifier that a statement is true, without conveying any additional information.
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Notes
- 1.
Arrow also assumes that information is indivisible, i.e. it cannot conveyed in parts that constitute evidence that the information has value.
- 2.
As Merges puts it: “Arrow has pointed out in his “paradox of information” without a property right, the licensor is in a pickle” (Merges 1994, p. 2657).
- 3.
This situation is realised by the purchase of the content of online newspapers with paywall systems: these display an article title and a few paragraphs (X −) before prompting the reader to pay for X.
- 4.
We adapt this definition from the one given for secret in Ganglmair and Tarantino (2014).
- 5.
This typical example gives a good intuition to what zero-knowledge proofs look like in the real world. Alice and Bob are playing the game “where is Valdo”: they have to find the real Valdo among a hundred of similar figures on the page of an illustration. How Alice can prove to Bob that she know where Valdo is without revealing his location? All Alice has to do is to take a large piece of cardboard (twice as large as the picture) with a small hole cut in the middle. She has to covers the picture with cardboard with the hole on the top of Valdo (while Bob is not looking), so that Valdo is lying behind the hole (Naor et al. 1999).
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Piazza, M., Pedicini, M. (2019). What Arrow’s Information Paradox Says (to Philosophers). In: Berkich, D., d'Alfonso, M. (eds) On the Cognitive, Ethical, and Scientific Dimensions of Artificial Intelligence. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 134. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01800-9_5
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