How to outsmart the Prisoner’s Dilemma - Lucas Husted
4,639,805 Views
3,378 Questions Answered
TEDEd Animation
Let’s Begin…
Two perfectly rational gingerbread men, Crispy and Chewy, are out strolling when they’re caught by a fox. Instead of simply eating them, he decides to put their friendship to the test with a cruel dilemma. He’ll ask each gingerbread man whether he’d opt to Spare or Sacrifice the other. What should they choose? Lucas Husted dives into the classic game theory scenario: the Prisoner's Dilemma.
Here we assumed that the game was infinitely repeated. Ignoring discounting, Is it possible to come up with an example where the players agree to cooperate based on the game illustrated here if they had played it 3 times in a row instead of infinite times? How about 10 times? What leads to the result you find? (Hint: try to reason backwards).
Sign in to answer questionAbout TED-Ed Animations
TED-Ed Animations feature the words and ideas of educators brought to life by professional animators. Are you an educator or animator interested in creating a TED-Ed Animation? Nominate yourself here »
Meet The Creators
- Educator Lucas Husted
- Director Ivana Bošnjak, Thomas Johnson Volda
- Narrator Addison Anderson
- Storyboard Artist Ivana Bošnjak
- Art Director Ivana Bošnjak, Thomas Johnson Volda
- Compositor Ivana Bošnjak
- Animator Ivana Bošnjak, Thomas Johnson Volda
- Composer Adam Alexander, Gavin Dodds
- Sound Designer Adam Alexander
- Director of Production Gerta Xhelo
- Editorial Director Alex Rosenthal
- Producer Bethany Cutmore-Scott
- Script Editor Cella Wright
- Fact-Checker Eden Girma
