Teaching game theory for computer engineering

Abstract

Microeconomic game theory has been used for analysis of economic, political, and social conflict and cooperation scenarios since the seminal work of Cournot and Stackelberg in the nineteenth century, and the works of von Neumann and his colleagues in the early parts of the twentieth century. Nash equilibrium for competitive games, Bayesian Nash equilibrium for games with incomplete information, subgame perfect equilibrium for repeated games etc., are basic concepts that are taught in almost all economics curricula. Until recently these concepts were virtually unknown to most engineers except for a few academicians. The powerful algorithmic and interpretive techniques of game theory were not an integral part of the engineering tool set provided to engineering students. However many scenarios in computer engineering can be and have been modeled game theoretically, and solution algorithms can be derived as winning strategies in such games. In this short paper we discuss how we have initiated a course offering entitled "Game Theory for Computer Engineering", and discuss our experience with this graduate level course for two consecutive years.