Abstract
Why is it that in an animal society, persistent selfishness is quite rare yet in human society, even strict laws and severe punishment do not eliminate selfish action against the interests of the whole? Stochastic learning agents called Pavlov strategies are used to model interactions in the multi-agent 2×2 Stag Hunt matrix game, a close relative of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Markov chain methods and computer simulations establish a threshold learning rate for the stability of cooperation. A society of rapidly adapting agents may suffer strife and dissension while another society with slower learning agents will enjoy the benefits of virtually complete cooperation.
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Kraines, D., Kraines, V. (1997). The threshold of cooperation among adaptive agents: Pavlov and the Stag Hunt. In: Müller, J.P., Wooldridge, M.J., Jennings, N.R. (eds) Intelligent Agents III Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages. ATAL 1996. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1193. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0013588
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0013588
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