Imitation vs evolution: Analysing the effects of strategy update mechanisms in N-player social dilemmas

Abstract

The problem of evolving and maintaining cooperation in both ecological and artificial multi-agent systems has intrigued scientists for decades. In this paper, we present an evolutionary game model that combines direct and spatial reciprocity to investigate the effectiveness of two different learning mechanisms used to promote cooperative behaviour in a social dilemma game - the N-player Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma (NIPD). Unlike the two-player game, in the NIPD the action of a player typically results in a non Pareto-optimal outcome for all other players within a social group given the relative costs and benefits associated with particular actions. Consequently, promoting system-wide coopera..