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The Evolution of Trust

ncase.me

41–50 of 81 posts

Re: The Evolution of Trust

#41
We like to think we are complex, free-will wielding creatures capable of doing complex and unpredictable things.

It's striking to see how simple we really are and honestly - how easy it is to explain how we behave. I get it - this is a simulation and it leaves out alot of colors to human behavior. But it is the essence of our value-oriented decision making and really quite sad that a better world is actually? quite easy to make.

I think software has the potential to create that world. I propose the creation of a formal group dedicated to exactly such a purpose.

Re: The Evolution of Trust

#43

One extension I'd like to see to this simulation is the exploration of group/tribe dynamics, as a way of exploring questions regarding in-group loyalty (anthropomorphized in as "ethnocentrism" or something analogous) vs egalitarianism. It seems like much of the success of these agents can depend on whether Agent A can determine what sort of actor Agent B is -- communication that can be conveyed beyond just the framew…

Another important missing factor here is the modeling of empathy and altruism. It can often simply feel good to help someone else, even if you get nothing tangible in return. This is a biological fact, as far as I'm aware.

Incredibly crude approximation: some situations that appear as [empathetic helper +0, receiver +3] on the surface, might in reality be [empathetic helper +1, receiver +3].

There is a ton of complexity in how this works in the real world. The magnitude or presence of the non-tangible reward may depend heavily on a certain aspects of one's value system. It may be heavily contextual -- only certain situations foster the non-tangible reward. Sometimes there is a potential tangible reward that may come much later, after some weeks, months, or years. And so on... I think this is barely scratching the surface.

Lastly, none of the people or dynamics in the system are static.

The linked interactive tool was very cool. However, I'm increasingly skeptical of these types of analyses as they generally are forced to ignore most of the complexity of the real world.

EDIT: I completely forgot about technology... things like the internet which completely change the nature of an interaction between people, or apps that mediate or flavor in-person interactions in ways that society has never seen before.

Re: The Evolution of Trust

#44
post #9

Of course, this all breaks down when you have a cartel :) I recall in one of the major prisoners dilemma tournaments, the winning entry was actually a coalition of users who would use the first few moves to establish a code for membership in the cartel, and then one entry was the master while the others were slaves. The slaves always cooperated and the master always defected, to their victory.

Interesting, do you have a link?

Re: The Evolution of Trust

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't the premise of the simulation at all. It explicitly says that the agent replacement phase is an abstraction and could just as easily be interpreted as agents changing their strategies. "Note: you don't have to wait for people to literally die & reproduce for culture to evolve -- all that's needed is that "unsuccessful" behaviors go away, and "successful" behaviors are imitated."

The premise of the replacement is that poorest adopt the strategy of the richest and is premised on this being the right thing to do even if the change is from always cooperating to always cheating. In some ways the description of replacement rather death is a more explicit example of the premise underlying the simulation that cheating is morally/ethically/rationally justifiable. The underlying moral/ethical theory b…

The "reward" is an unspecified scalar value. You are casting the terms of the model into "poor" and "rich". It's a mathematical model, not an ethical one.

Re: The Evolution of Trust

#46
This is super impressive. I have been asking myself these questions for years, it is awesome to see such a nice visualization of the answers. The "30 minutes to play" almost made me click away but you got me hooked at the next screen.

Re: The Evolution of Trust

#47
post #23
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly enough, seemingly to compensate for this phenomenon, almost every new platform that requires people to interact with each other has a built in trust and reward system with ratings (e.g. Uber). And for physical businesses, we have things like Yelp. We are effectively trying to anticipate our opponents behavior through a trusted intermediary. There was a Black Mirror episode on giving every person on the…

Trust, however, is not a miracle drug. For one thing, people can build trust with the intend to abuse it after a longer period of time. An abuser, for example, could plan to offer 20 "good rides" on Uber until s/he strikes. For another thing, many people have learnt to skillfully simulate trust which may pose a problem for you. For instance, you may believe to be in a loving relationship but all of a sudden you find…

The book "Phishing for Phools" has a good chapter on "reputation mining", which is essentially that, with the added wrinkle that you can buy a company that has a good reputation and cut corners until the customers wise up. I'm looking at you, InBev.

Re: The Evolution of Trust

#48
post #13

Wow that is extremely insightful. Now I understand why globalisation is dangerous; if people start to favor short term relationships (both personal and business) with many different partners (smaller number of rounds per match ), then society will evolve to become full of cheaters.

Interestingly enough, seemingly to compensate for this phenomenon, almost every new platform that requires people to interact with each other has a built in trust and reward system with ratings (e.g. Uber). And for physical businesses, we have things like Yelp. We are effectively trying to anticipate our opponents behavior through a trusted intermediary. There was a Black Mirror episode on giving every person on the…

But someone wishing to get an advantage wouldn't just rely on that metric (IMDB, Yelp, Amazon ratings). There will be a mismatch between some personal metric and your own value system, and the difference is value you can reap.

Re: The Evolution of Trust

#49

Wow that is extremely insightful. Now I understand why globalisation is dangerous; if people start to favor short term relationships (both personal and business) with many different partners (smaller number of rounds per match ), then society will evolve to become full of cheaters.

Interestingly I had the opposite but complementary conclusion: if we end up forming many long term relationships through cooperation and maintain them we all are better off.

What I meant was that more interactions per relationship on a smaller number of relationships is better that fewer interactions per relationships across a larger number of relationships.

Basically with globalization, social media etc... The number of relationships have gone up but the quality and depth of each relationship has gone down. This makes it harder for the rational copycat personality type who relies on empirical evidence to build trust.

Re: The Evolution of Trust

#50

Wow that is extremely insightful. Now I understand why globalisation is dangerous; if people start to favor short term relationships (both personal and business) with many different partners (smaller number of rounds per match ), then society will evolve to become full of cheaters.

How does have anything to do with globalization, vs having a lot more to do with directed news reporting and mass media?
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