Evolutionary Dynamics of Preguidance Strategies in Population Games

Abstract

Promoting cooperation among conflicting entities in human society and intelligent systems is a formidable task. One potential solution could involve the formulation of incentives designed to decrease the benefits of noncooperators and/or increase the rewards for cooperators. We put forth a novel incentive approach, specifically, a guidance strategy where certain cooperators willingly bear a cost to alter the actions of agents who intend to defect prior to the actual commencement of a game. We introduce an innovative game-theoretical framework that sheds light on the dynamics of guidance strategies, encompassing both peer guidance and pool guidance. Under the peer guidance scheme, each guider independently incurs the cost to influence agents intending to defect, whereas in the pool guidance scheme, guiders organically establish an institution to influence agents prone to free riding. Regardless of whether a peer or pool guidance scheme is utilized, the implementation of a guidance strategy has proven to be remarkably effective in reducing the instances of pure cooperation, also known as second-order free riding. Intriguingly, our result suggests that the pool guidance strategy demonstrates a more potent deterrent effect on second-order free-riding behavior than the peer guidance strategy, particularly when the cost of guidance is exceptionally high. These findings underscore the significance of preguidance in fostering cooperation in human and multiagent AI systems and could offer valuable insights for the development of a regulatory mechanism for preemptive guidance and subsequent punishment.