Advanced Decision Systems: Agents, Games & Evolution (AGE). OPIM 319, Spring 2006

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1 Advanced Decision Systems: Agents, Games & Evolution (AGE). OPIM 319, Spring 2006 Steven O. Kimbrough 565 JMHH, 9-12 R & by appointment kimbrough (à) wharton.upenn.edu Course Web page: sok/teaching/age/s07/ webcafé: 11 January 2007 File: emergence-class foils.tex/pdf.

2 Today From last time. Mathematics? The books. Games in the wild. Examples of games in vivo. Recommended reading: AGEbook, chapter 3, Games in the Wild. Emergence (and perhaps a bit next time, too). Read: Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior, posted for the class. Recommended: AGEbook, chapter 2, Four Themes, section 2, Self-Organization and Emergence. For next time, read (skim), AGEbook, chapter 4, Games in the Abstract. Start reading Axelrod s The Evolution of Cooperation. We ll take it up in earnest next week. 1

3 Now, towards a natural history of games Optional reading: A Natural History of Peace, by Robert M. Sapolsky, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2006, sapolskyforeignaffairs-2006.pdf [Sap06]. robert-m-sapolsky/a-natural-history-of-peace.html A reading covered in a future class: Garrett Hardin [Har68], The Tragedy of the Commons, Science, 1968, hardin-tragedy.pdf. 2

4 War Sun-tzu ( 400 BC) All warfare is based on deception. There is no place where espionage is not used. Offer the enemy bait to lure him. Sun-Tzu Appraise war in terms of the fundamental factors. The first of these factors is moral influence. Sun-Tzu Nothing is more difficult than the art of maneuvering for advantageous positions. Sun-Tzu Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. (attributed) Sun-tzu, 3

5 Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent s fate. Sun-tzu, The Art of War. Emptiness and Fullness The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities...it is best to win without fighting. Sun-tzu, The Art of War. Planning a Siege - More quotations on: [Victory] A military operation involves deception. Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective. Sun-tzu, The Art of War. Strategic Assessments Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. Sun-tzu, The Art of War. Strategic Assessments 4

6 War, Conflict: Deception, Misdirection Emphasized by such modern military strategists as Liddell Hart. Think: D-Day, Korean War Essential in sports. Pass versus run in football. Pitch selection in baseball. Wee Willie Keeler hit.432 in Asked how a man of his diminutive size could put together such an average, Keeler responded: Simple. I keep my eyes clear and I hit em where they ain t. 5

7 Examples, Towards a Natural History of Games Movies and imaginative literature (fiction) are often excellent sources Chapters 1 3 (about 9 minutes) from Rounders The Tell (scene 4, about 9 minutes) from House of Games (available at Penn library) Ricky Henderson example, AGEbook, Games in the Wild. Rock-paper-scissors. The other side of deception. Short con jobs. The Flu (scene 4) from House of Games and Semper Fi (scene 7). Nonfiction on big-time jobs: The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man by David Maurer and Luc Sante. Movie: The Sting. 6

8 Examples, Towards a Natural History of Games Tipping & trust. Slugging. ex= &ei=1&en=b688058d2ed63977 The New York Times, To Commute to Washington, the Early Bird Gets Slugs April 29, 2003 By PETER T. KILBORN 7

9 Examples, Towards a Natural History of Games Markets. US/Israeli overt air strike against Iran. Taken: January 3,

10 Examples, Towards a Natural History of Games Markets. US/Israeli overt air strike against Iran. Taken: January 11,

11 Examples, Towards a Natural History of Games New Orleans Saints to beat the Philadelphia Eagles on January 13, 2007, taken January 11,

12 Examples, Towards a Natural History of Games War Is it really zero-sum? Statesmanship. Washington and Napoleon. Commerce Schelling. Other themes: strength from weakness (Ulysses and the Sirens, truck drivers, labor negotiations) Game theory references in popular culture: 11

13 In the natural history of games Recurring themes: Deception, misdirection The tell, as a counter to deception, misdirection Promoting confidence. For good or for ill. We ve emphasize con games. What about establishing trust? How? Strength from weakness, limitation, constraint 12

14 Emergence, or Self-Organization The idea is that system-level (aggregate) properties are the result of component behavior, directed by the components (or agents) locally, without global control or direction. Properties emerge from the bottom up. Adam Smith famously proposed an invisible hand explanation, appealing to a form of emergence. Here is the single passage in The Wealth of Nations (Chapter II of Book IV) in which Smith uses the term. 13

15 As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. 14

16 Emergence, or Self-Organization Smith s invisible hand is often taken to be benevolent or even optimal. Smith had no such illusions. See a nice discussion in Schelling s Micromotives and Macrobehavior. Earlier, Thomas Hobbes had a much less sanguine view. In the state of nature (letting what will emerge emerge) we find a war of all against all leading to continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. (See AGEbook, page 21.) What will self-organization accomplish and under which circumstances? How much control is needed and of what types? These are profound and fundamental questions. 15

17 Emergence, or Self-Organization Darwin ends On the Origin of Species (first edition, 1959) with this wonderful and famous paragraph, summarizing the general mechanism by which species emerge by a self-organizing (decentralized, bottomup) process : It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being 16

18 Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. 17

19 Examples of Emergence, or Self-Organization Schelling s example of seating at a lecture Schelling s segragation model. See NetLogo segregation.nlogo NetLogo library: flocking.nlogo, Wolf Sheep Predation.nlogo, Traffic Basic, Traffic Grid SOK s symmetric-2x2txt.nlogo. Do Prisoner s Dilemma with R=3, T=3.2, S=0, P=1 and initial density = Try Stag Hunt, setting T=2. Try turning mutation on. 18

20 References [Har68] Garrett Hardin, The tragedy of the commons, Science 162 (1968), no. 3859, [Sap06] Robert M. Sapolsky, A natural history of peace, Foreign Affairs 85 (2006), no. 1, org/ faessay85110/robert--m--sapolsky/ a--natural--history--of--peace.html. 19

21 End Note $Id: emergence-class foils.tex,v /01/11 16:25:03 sok Exp $ 20