At the end of the show, the team used a sort-of Prisoner’s Dilemma to split their winnings: each team member chose “Friend” (cooperate) or “Foe” (defect). If one player cooperated and the other defected, the defector kept 100% of the pot. If both cooperated, each kept 50%. And if both defected, neither kept anything (this is a significant difference from the standard dilemma, where a player is a little better off defecting than cooperating if her opponent defects).
This is the weirdest, most surreal round of “Split or Steal” I have ever seen. The more I think about the psychology of it, the more interesting it is. I’ll save my comments for the comments, because I want you to watch it before I say more. Really.
Wow. I also will not give anything away, but I agree that this is an insane round of this game. There are two agents with very different modeling processes trying to achieve the best outcome for themselves, but (I don’t know if this applies only to me or to others), unlike a normal PD, we are not a participant so we don’t know the processes of any of the agents, which makes it very enjoyable. This round is a testament to something, that is for sure.
A very interesting episode of a similar game show, Golden Balls (where “Split” = “Friend”, “Steal” = “Foe”).
As Bruce Schneier comments:
Wow. I also will not give anything away, but I agree that this is an insane round of this game. There are two agents with very different modeling processes trying to achieve the best outcome for themselves, but (I don’t know if this applies only to me or to others), unlike a normal PD, we are not a participant so we don’t know the processes of any of the agents, which makes it very enjoyable. This round is a testament to something, that is for sure.
Steve Landsburg also blogged about this show (video clip included).