It is a completely standard mistake to refer to just about anything game theoretic as ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’. In this instance, there are several elements that are neither newcomblike nor Prisoner’s Dilemmaish. When one adds all the necessary assumptions and limitations to this problem to make the decision one particular agent faces analogous to a Prisoner’s Dilemma one does not find that $0.05 is equivalent to ‘defect’. The judgement required to reach that decision requires far more insight than a defection. When Hamerish said Ashley understood the game he was not saying “Ashley chose to defect which is the correct response to the Prisoner’s not-dilemma”.
Mind you, Neil makes a good point. He just happens to be making false claims about what a Professor believes because he has been fed a false premise. I don’t like being misrepresented and I particularly don’t like it when this misrepresentation makes me look naive. If we go around saying things that are not true out of negligence then this is what we can expect to happen.
When one adds all the necessary assumptions and limitations to this problem to make the decision one particular agent faces analogous to a Prisoner’s Dilemma one does not find that $0.05 is equivalent to ‘defect’.
It doesn’t need to be. The mapping to the PD here is that defection is continuous rather than binary. It generalizes the concept of defection in the canonical PD so that you can choose a level of defection, and the most “defective” (!) person, if they aren’t equal, diverts utility to him/herself at the expense of the other players.
Just like how in the standard PD, a defection when the other player doesn’t will divert utility to yourself.
The mapping to the PD here is that defection is continuous rather than binary.
In the PD increasing defection level from 0 to 1 never lowers utility. In this game increasing what you call the continuous measure of defection always lowers utility except when your defection is the largest.
It is completely standard to refer to a wide class of problems as PD. This example is much closer than most examples.
It is a completely standard mistake to refer to just about anything game theoretic as ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’. In this instance, there are several elements that are neither newcomblike nor Prisoner’s Dilemmaish. When one adds all the necessary assumptions and limitations to this problem to make the decision one particular agent faces analogous to a Prisoner’s Dilemma one does not find that $0.05 is equivalent to ‘defect’. The judgement required to reach that decision requires far more insight than a defection. When Hamerish said Ashley understood the game he was not saying “Ashley chose to defect which is the correct response to the Prisoner’s not-dilemma”.
Mind you, Neil makes a good point. He just happens to be making false claims about what a Professor believes because he has been fed a false premise. I don’t like being misrepresented and I particularly don’t like it when this misrepresentation makes me look naive. If we go around saying things that are not true out of negligence then this is what we can expect to happen.
It doesn’t need to be. The mapping to the PD here is that defection is continuous rather than binary. It generalizes the concept of defection in the canonical PD so that you can choose a level of defection, and the most “defective” (!) person, if they aren’t equal, diverts utility to him/herself at the expense of the other players.
Just like how in the standard PD, a defection when the other player doesn’t will divert utility to yourself.
In the PD increasing defection level from 0 to 1 never lowers utility. In this game increasing what you call the continuous measure of defection always lowers utility except when your defection is the largest.