Extortion and cooperation in the Prisoner’s Dilemma

Abstract

Self-serving, rational agents sometimes cooperate to their mutual benefit. However, when and why cooperation emerges is surprisingly hard to pin down. To address this question, scientists from diverse disciplines have used the Prisoner’s Dilemma, a simple two-player game, as a model problem. In PNAS, Press and Dyson (1) dramatically expand our understanding of this classic game by uncovering strategies that provide a unilateral advantage to sentient players pitted against unwitting opponents. By exposing these results, Press and Dyson have fundamentally changed the viewpoint on the Prisoner’s Dilemma, opening a range of new possibilities for the study of cooperation.

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