Intuition. A Moloch game is a game such that there is a utility function UM, called “the Moloch’s utility function”, such that if the agents behave individually rationally, then they collectively behave as a “Moloch” that controls all players simultaneously and optimizes UM. In particular, the Nash equilibria correspond to local optima of UM.
Minor, but this tripped me up. My read of “controls all players simultaneously” would be that there’s no such thing as a local optimum, it can just move directly to the global optimum from any other state. I’m not sure what would be a better wording though, and your non-intuitive definition was clear enough to set me right.
Minor, but this tripped me up. My read of “controls all players simultaneously” would be that there’s no such thing as a local optimum, it can just move directly to the global optimum from any other state. I’m not sure what would be a better wording though, and your non-intuitive definition was clear enough to set me right.