What is the Prisoner's Dilemma? The prisoner's dilemma is a game in which 2 prisoners are being privately interrogated and cannot communicate with each other. Each prisoner can choose to stick to their alibi and not snitch (cooperate) or they can snitch (defect). In the original game, the punishments/rewards were varying amounts of jail time, but in this computer version, if both prisoners cooperate, they each get 3 POINTS. If both prisoners defect, they each get 1 POINT. If one prisoner cooperates and the other defects, the prisoner who defected gets 5 points and the prisoner who cooperated gets 0. The dilemma here is that no matter what the other prisoner plans to do, defecting is the better option. So, both prisoners logically choose to defect. They then each get 1 point when they both could have cooperated and got 3 points. So, when both focus on individual gain, they miss out on altruistic benefits. Who am I playing against? You're making your own AI. What is the best strategy? Well, why would I tell you that? It would ruin the fun. This is a game, not an article. Play the game and find out. What is the most fun way to play this game? I recommend repeatedly doing random to face new opponents every time and try to map them out so you could trick them and get max points. It is fun because you don't know what they will do at the start so it is a duel of trying to map them while also trying to survive.
