Related papers: What does Newcomb's paradox teach us?
Pandora's Box is a fundamental stochastic optimization problem, where the decision-maker must find a good alternative while minimizing the search cost of exploring the value of each alternative. In the original formulation, it is assumed…
Common knowledge is crucial for safe group coordination. In its absence, humans must rely on shared knowledge, which is inherently limited in depth and therefore prone to coordination failures, because any finite-order knowledge attribution…
When a prediction algorithm serves a collection of users, disparities in prediction quality are likely to emerge. If users respond to accurate predictions by increasing engagement, inviting friends, or adopting trends, repeated learning…
In game theory, players have continuous expected payoff functions and can use fixed point theorems to locate equilibria. This optimization method requires that players adopt a particular type of probability measure space. Here, we introduce…
In the ultimatum game, the challenge is to explain why responders reject non-zero offers thereby defying classical rationality. Fairness and related notions have been the main explanations so far. We explain this rejection behavior via the…
We construct games of chance from simpler games of chance. We show that it may happen that the simpler games of chance are fair or unfavourable to a player andyet the new combined game is favourable -- this is a counter-intuitive…
This paper studies a game in which an informed sender with state-independent preferences uses verifiable messages to convince a receiver to choose an action from a finite set. We characterize the equilibrium outcomes of the game and compare…
After the social learning models were proposed, finding the solutions of the games becomes a well-defined mathematical question. However, almost all papers on the games and their applications are based on solutions built upon either an…
Human decision behaviour is quite diverse. In many games humans on average do not achieve maximal payoff and the behaviour of individual players remains inhomogeneous even after playing many rounds. For instance, in repeated prisoner…
The Prisoner's Dilemma has been a subject of extensive research due to its importance in understanding the ever-present tension between individual self-interest and social benefit. A strictly dominant strategy in a Prisoner's Dilemma…
We study the effects of individual perceptions of payoffs in two-player games. In particular we consider the setting in which individuals' perceptions of the game are influenced by their previous experiences and outcomes. Accordingly, we…
Decision making is the cognitive process of selecting a course of action among multiple alternatives. As the decision maker belongs to a complex microenvironment (which contains multiple decision makers), has to make a decision where…
We extend the formalism of Conjectural Variations games to Stackelberg games involving multiple leaders and a single follower. To solve these nonconvex games, a common assumption is that the leaders compute their strategies having perfect…
The prediction of the N-box paradox, that whichever box is opened will contain the record of the particle having passed through it, is traced to a failure to specify whether the other boxes are distinguishable or indistinguishable. These…
I apply some of the lessons from quantum theory, in particular from Bell's theorem, to a debate on the foundations of decision theory and causation. By tracing a formal analogy between the basic assumptions of Causal Decision Theory…
The classical, complete-information two-player games assume that the problem data (in particular the payoff matrix) is known exactly by both players. In a now famous result, Nash has shown that any such game has an equilibrium in mixed…
We study a modification of the so-called Parrondo's paradox where a large number of individuals choose the game they want to play by voting. We show that it can be better for the players to vote randomly than to vote according to their own…
The "paradox" arises in the Two Envelopes Paradox from the incorrect formulation of the argument. The infomation given is misused and therefore the results are incorrect for the question asked. The key is to be clear on what question we are…
The recent operationalization of the famous Newcomb's game by Schmidt (1998) offers an interesting and thought-provoking look at the plausibility of backward causation in a Newtonian universe. Hereby we investigate two details of the…
We consider a scenario in which two reinforcement learning agents repeatedly play a matrix game against each other and update their parameters after each round. The agents' decision-making is transparent to each other, which allows each…