The prisoner’s dilemma is a canonical example of a game analyzed in game theory that shows why two individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their best interests to do so.
It goes as follows:
“Two members of a criminal gang are arrested and imprisoned. Each prisoner is in solitary confinement with no means of speaking to or exchanging messages with the other. The police admit they don’t have enough evidence to convict the pair on the principal charge.
The police tell prisoner 1 & 2 they each have four possible outcomes:
– If he remains silent & his partner betrays, he will be locked up for 3 years.
– If he betrays his partner & his partner is silent, he will walk away free.
– If both betray each other they will get 2 years.
– If both remain silent, both walk away free.”
Because betrayal always rewards more than cooperation, all purely rational self-interested prisoners would end up betraying the other, and so the only possible outcome for two purely rational prisoners is for them both to betray each other. The interesting part of this result is that pursuing individual reward logically leads the prisoners to both betray, but they would get a better reward if they both cooperated.
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