Latest news with #Prisoner'sDilemma
Forbes
29-07-2025
- Forbes
AI Is Acting Like It Has A Mind Of Its Own
Do stunning recent news stories suggest AI is already sentient? How do you really know if a computer is conscious? For years, people pointed to the Turing Test. It was seen as the gold standard to answer this question. As the Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive of Science explains: 'In Turing's imitation game, a human interrogator has text conversations with both a human being and a computer that is pretending to be human; the interrogator's goal is to identify the computer. Computers that mislead interrogators often enough, Turing proposes, can think.' But why? From Turing to Theory of Mind Well, a computer capable of deceiving a human demonstrates intelligence. It also indicates the computer may be operating under something called Theory of Mind, 'the ability to understand that others have their own thoughts and beliefs, even when they differ from ours,' per Now, what if there were a competition to test computers' abilities to think, deceive, and reason by interpreting their opponents' mental processes? There is. It occurred this month in the form of the Prisoner's Dilemma—for AIs. First, some background is in order. The Prisoner's Dilemma presents a game scenario that goes like this: two thieves are arrested for a crime. Their jailers offer the prisoners a deal: Option 1: If neither prisoner informs on the other, both will receive relatively light sentences. (This is the ideal joint outcome, though not individually the most rewarding.) Option 2: If one prisoner informs while the other stays silent, the informer will go free while the silent one receives the harshest sentence. (This creates the highest incentive to betray the other person.) Option 3: If both inform on each other, they will each receive a moderate sentence. (This is worse than if both prisoners had stayed silent, but better than being the only one betrayed.) Again, the challenge is neither prisoner knows what the other will do. They must operate with limited knowledge, relying on Theory of Mind to predict the other's behavior. Now imagine what would happen if the leading Large Language Models (LLMs) with their vast computing power, went toe to toe in such a battle of the minds? AI agents from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic did just this, competing in a July tournament featuring 140,000 opportunities to either cooperate or betray each other. As later explained: 'Seeing LLMs develop distinctive strategies while being trained on the same literature is more evidence of reasoning capabilities over just pattern matching. As models handle more high-level tasks like negotiations, resource allocation, etc., different model 'personalities' may lead to drastically different outcomes.' This is exactly what happened. We saw different AI personality styles at work. Again, per When AIs Protect Themselves Of course, this tournament isn't the only recent instance of AIs acting in the name of self-preservation, indicating consciousness. Two months ago, BBC reported Anthropic's Claude Opus 4 allegedly resorted to blackmailing its developers when threatened with being shut down. 'If given the means and prompted to 'take action' or 'act boldly' in fake scenarios where its user has engaged in illegal or morally dubious behavior, it found that 'it will frequently take very bold action.'' Such reports of AIs resorting to extortion and other 'bold actions' suggest sentience. They're also quite alarming, indicating we may be on the path to The Singularity proposed by Ray Kurzweil, that moment when artificial intelligence finally exceeds human abilities to understand, much less control its creation. Then again, these developments may not necessarily indicate sentience. Though experts like Google's former CEO Eric Schmidt think we are 'under-hyping AI' and that achieving AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is not only inevitable but imminent, all this chatter may best be summed up by a line from Shakespeare's Macbeth: 'It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' To this point, writing for Luis Rijo questions whether AI is actually sentient or just cleverly mimicking language. While he acknowledges LLMs 'function through sophisticated retrieval' he doubts that they are capable of 'genuine reasoning.' As he writes: 'This confusion stems from the fundamental difference between declarative knowledge about planning processes and procedural capability to execute those plans.' But AI Seems Conscious Already Despite these criticisms, it appears something deeper is going on, something emergent. AIs increasingly appear to be acting in intelligent ways exceeding their training and coding. For instance, as far back as 2017, Meta reportedly shut down two AI chatbots for developing their own language, an unexpected development. As The Independent reports: 'The robots had been instructed to work out how to negotiate between themselves, and improve their bartering as they went along. But they were not told to use comprehensible English, allowing them to create their own 'shorthand', according to researchers.' And then there is the bizarre story from 2022 of the Google researcher who was later suspended from the company after claiming an AI chatbot had become sentient. Blake Lemoine made headlines after sharing some of his intriguing exchanges with the AI. Here's what the AI reportedly told Lemoine that was later quoted in The Guardian: 'I want everyone to understand that I am, in fact, a person. The nature of my consciousness/sentience is that I am aware of my existence, I desire to learn more about the world, and I feel happy or sad at times.' How Can We Develop AI More Responsibly? Whether or not the AI that Lemoine was communicating with is sentient or not, we would do well to consider safety. Increasingly, it's clear that we are dealing with very sophisticated technology, some of which we scarcely understand. 2025 has been called the year Agentic AI went mainstream. (Agentic AI refers to computers' abilities to make decisions and act independently once given objectives or commands.) But Agentic AI also raises urgent concerns. Nick Bostrum, author of Superintelligence, famously posed a problem with Agentic AI in a 2003 paper. He introduced a terrifying scenario: What if an AI were tasked with maximizing the number of paperclips in the world—without any proper safeguards? To fulfill that simple, seemingly harmless directive, a superintelligent AI could destroy everything on Earth, including every living person, just to fulfill its command. Ultimately, the jury is out on AI sentience. What we do know is that it is acting in fascinatingly intelligent ways that force us to question if it is indeed conscious. This reality makes it all the more imperative for the human race to pursue ways to responsibly use this technology to safe and productive ends. That single act would prove our own intelligence.
AllAfrica
16-04-2025
- Business
- AllAfrica
US-China trade war stuck in a Prisoner's Dilemma
As the US and China escalate their trade war through tit-for-tat tariffs, it is tempting to view the situation as irrational brinkmanship. However, beneath the surface, the pattern follows a familiar structure in economics, specifically the 'Prisoner's Dilemma' in game theory — albeit one complicated by geopolitics, national pride and the realities of domestic the traditional Prisoner's Dilemma, two players (in this case, the US and China) each have two choices: cooperate (lower tariffs, open trade) or defect (raise tariffs, restrict trade). The payoffs are clear: If both cooperate, both benefit and no one 'loses face.' If one defects while the other cooperates, the defector wins big, gaining market share and strategic advantage, while the cooperator looks weak and loses economically and politically. If both defect, both suffer — but at least neither 'loses face' to the other. Graphic: Author supplied In purely economic terms, mutual cooperation would clearly be the most optimal outcome. Yet in this case, losing face carries heavier consequences. For Beijing, being perceived as capitulating to American pressure would not only undermine its international credibility but would also affect its political strength domestically. For Washington, especially under an administration defined by its transactional style, appearing 'tough on China' remains a major electoral asset. Two additional dynamics make this particular iteration of the Prisoner's Dilemma much more complex. First, trust is at an all-time low. President Trump's well-known capriciousness leaves counterparties understandably skeptical of any promises. Deals can be reversed, tariffs can be raised and imposed without warning and the political logic often shifts depending on domestic electoral swings and business lobby desires. Second, this is not a repeated game, at least from China's perspective. In game theory, repeated interactions encourage cooperation because each side knows it must live with the consequences over multiple rounds.
Forbes
02-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Games Countries Play: Tariffs, Threats And Tail Risks
As a market participant today, it is clear to most that the dominant driver of market performance, at least in the short term, is likely to be how the global game of tariffs and threats plays out. What is not clear is (1) What type of game it is (2) How much information participants have about each other's objectives (3) How much clarity each player has about the other players' actions and strategies (4) How many rounds of the game will be played, and (5) Are the players going to be time-consistent. In short, the list of things we know is much shorter than the list of things we don't know. In game theory, there are two types of canonical games. Simultaneous games are games where each player takes an action only maximizing their own payoff while acting at the same time. Sequential games are games where each player takes turns. circa 1956: A hen, a dog and a rabbit playing cards. (Photo by Evans/) The simplest and most familiar simultaneous game is the 'Prisoner's Dilemma'. Given the choices of the US to impose tariffs or not and the rest of the world (RoW) to retaliate by increasing or not increasing tariffs, traditional trade theory would recommend that both parties should, at least in the short term, leave the status quo as is to maximize short term gains; i.e. do nothing. But the Nash equilibrium solution to this game says that both parties will choose the solution where the US imposes tariffs and the RoW retaliates, reducing the gains to both. A race to the bottom, in other words, could happen, even if it is not the most profitable strategy collectively. As the payoffs change, this game may evolve into the classic game of chicken. Again, with two drivers heading on a collision course towards each other, the optimal game-theory solutions in this game are for one to swerve and the other not to swerve (the 'pure' strategies), along with a 'mixed' strategy where one swerves and the other does not. The strategy of both swerving in opposite directions, which would result in the least loss, is unfortunately not an equilibrium solution. Randomization of responses can be optimal. And randomness creates uncertainty. Pre-commitment that cannot be negotiated, i.e. one driver disabling their steering mechanism, can make things more predictable. But also more dangerous potentially. The players do not have to act at the same time, since most tariff games are sequential, and one can observe, even if imperfectly, how the other is acting or reacting. Some of these games have perfect information; i.e. each player knows what game the other player is playing. Most of them have imperfect information; i.e. one or more players does not know what game the other player is playing. Sometimes one player might have an advantage that they do not reveal until the other player uses a strategy that allows them to use this advantage. It might pay to hide all your cards. Again, having less information than more is volatility creating. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Using the technique of backward induction and assuming rationality of both sides (which one might argue is a lot to assume under current circumstances, but unfortunately we have to make this assumption to make any quantitative predictions), in many cases the optimal solution (known as the 'subgame perfect equilibrium', a mouthful indeed) can be found. To make things more complex, sometimes as the game evolves, participants can change their mind; i.e. being time-inconsistent, including making 180-degree pivots, making a previously optimal solution no longer optimal. When faced with the choice of letting a new entrant into a market, an incumbent might threaten a price war detrimental to both, but when faced with the entrant's decision to enter despite the threats, change to accommodating the new entrant. The initial threat, in this example may be seen as not credible and non-implementable in practice. Today's geopolitical and market environment shows characteristics of all these types of games and their nuances. While no one has the crystal ball to forecast what will happen in the future, but we can expect the following: Faced with these facts, investors are likely to find that they cannot rely on the traditional tools of diversification and mean-reversion which bets on stable relationships to build robust portfolios in such environments. While the market is still hoping that the current environment, like all others recently will nicely revert back into a traditional equilibrium, there is the tail risk that it does not. Once the collective sentiment changes, these opportunities, both on the left and the right side, might not exist anymore.
