Sometimes it takes a cute web app... to understand what game theory tells us about improving trust (clue: be a Copykitten)
In A/UK’s urgency to improve our motivation, intent and powers of cooperation, we’ll seize on anything that will help human beings develop the skills to come together, and act in common.
Game theory (read all about it) hasn’t really been high on our lists of expertises that can help explain any of this. Its premise, as the Hacker Noon site in the links indicates, is “the study of how and why people make decisions within a competitive situation, while keeping in mind what actions their competitors will take. You can think of it as the study of strategic decision making”.
Birthed at the height of the Cold War, game theory is often characterised as assuming humans are fundamentally competitive entities. That is, until they realise that cooperative strategies actually benefit them most in playing any social game, over the long run. But what does game theory tell us about how that penny might drop?
So we are delighted to have recommended to us - from a little while ago, 2017 - this interactive web-cartoon/game by Nicky Case, called The Evolution of Trust. With soothing music, cute characters and enjoyable devices, and proceeding from the startling history of the Christmas Truce in WWI, Nicky does a brilliant educational job.
He shows you how game theory can help you think about the mix of characters you might find in a diverse social situation, and the points at which the various styles of cooperators and “reciprocal altruists” (you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”) will flourish over the cheats and the calculators.
In his 2020s blog, Nicky also shows his human side, while explaining the trust game:
In hindsight, The Evolution of Trust also answered my biggest moral problem:
"How do you be a good person without being taken advantage of?"
As you've seen, my maladaptive version of "forgive & forget" + "put others before yourself" led to several shitty situations.
Game theory has a better solution: in The Evolution of Trust, little simulated characters play a game of trust with each other, where they can either "cheat" or "cooperate".
If they only play the game once, the winning strategy is "Always Cheat". But if they play the game repeatedly, the winning strategy becomes "Copycat": cooperate in the first round, then do whatever the other player did in the previous round. Do unto others!
But if mistakes can happen – e.g. someone meant to cooperate but accidentally chose "cheat" – one error between two Copycat players means they'll take revenge on each other over a single slip-up, forever.
So, in a repeated game with mistakes, the winning strategy is "Copykitten": cooperate in the first round, then keep cooperating unless the other player cheats *twice in a row*.
Copykitten thrives, because it forgives the occasional mistake, but is not so forgiving that it enables a co-dependent relationship with an abuser.
Maybe my voice of conscience could learn a bit from game theory.
We’d recommend you play through all the games. They make concrete the consequences of different game strategies, and the supremacy of the Copykitten - who has a capacity for forgiveness of others cheating or destructive strategies, but not infinitely. Nicky’s conclusion are below:
Check out some of Nicky’s other Explorable Explanations - on the speed of light, on how to remember anything forever-ish, and many others.