Evolutionary instability of Zero Determinant strategies demonstrates that winning isn't everything
Christoph Adami, Arend Hintze
(Submitted on 13 Aug 2012 (v1), last revised 25 Jun 2013 (this version, v4))
Zero Determinant (ZD) strategies are a new class of probabilistic and conditional strategies that are able to unilaterally set the expected payoff of an opponent in iterated plays of the Prisoner's Dilemma irrespective of the opponent's strategy, or else to set the ratio between a ZD player's and their opponent's expected payoff. Here we show that while ZD strategies are weakly dominant, they are not evolutionarily stable and will instead evolve into less coercive strategies. We show that ZD strategies with an informational advantage over other players that allows them to recognize other ZD strategies can be evolutionarily stable (and able to exploit other players). However, such an advantage is bound to be short-lived as opposing strategies evolve to counteract the recognition.
Comments: 14 pages, 4 figures. Change in title (again!) to comply with Nature Communications requirements. To appear in Nature Communications
Subjects: Populations and Evolution (q-bio.PE); Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems (nlin.AO); Neurons and Cognition (q-bio.NC)
Cite as: arXiv:1208.2666 [q-bio.PE]
(or arXiv:1208.2666v4 [q-bio.PE] for this version)
Submission history
From: Christoph Adami [view email]
[v1] Mon, 13 Aug 2012 19:00:24 GMT (113kb,D)
[v2] Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:59:44 GMT (99kb,D)
[v3] Fri, 21 Jun 2013 14:01:18 GMT (1910kb,D)
[v4] Tue, 25 Jun 2013 13:16:31 GMT (1910kb,D)
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