I'm wondering, what perspective does philosophy add to game theory? All of the philosophical musings at the beginning of the article seem to describe what "moral" beings should do. This seems unrelated to what "rational" agents must do, which is one of the simpler questions of game theory. Do philosophical arguments guide, for example, how one might design utility functions? I have studied enough game theory and attended enough conferences and his hasn't showed up except to argue that a definition is perhaps reasonable (and then we wait for the elegant algorithm/analysis punchline anyway).
Game Theory
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Re: Game Theory
#12I'm wondering, what perspective does philosophy add to game theory? All of the philosophical musings at the beginning of the article seem to describe what "moral" beings should do. This seems unrelated to what "rational" agents must do, which is one of the simpler questions of game theory. Do philosophical arguments guide, for example, how one might design utility functions? I have studied enough game theory and atte…
I think game theory isn't too concerned about how one might design utility functions, it is mostly interested in what one should do when utility functions are already given
Re: Game Theory
#13I'm wondering, what perspective does philosophy add to game theory? All of the philosophical musings at the beginning of the article seem to describe what "moral" beings should do. This seems unrelated to what "rational" agents must do, which is one of the simpler questions of game theory. Do philosophical arguments guide, for example, how one might design utility functions? I have studied enough game theory and atte…
I think game theory isn't too concerned about how one might design utility functions, it is mostly interested in what one should do when utility functions are already given
[deleted]
Re: Game Theory
#14Any recommendations for the best online course on game theory?
Not strictly online, but this course is very good. Unfortunately, a little pricey.
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/games-people-play-gam...
Re: Game Theory
#15I'm wondering, what perspective does philosophy add to game theory? All of the philosophical musings at the beginning of the article seem to describe what "moral" beings should do. This seems unrelated to what "rational" agents must do, which is one of the simpler questions of game theory. Do philosophical arguments guide, for example, how one might design utility functions? I have studied enough game theory and atte…
I'm thinking ethics are rather a field of application for game theory.
Re: Game Theory
#16I'm wondering, what perspective does philosophy add to game theory? All of the philosophical musings at the beginning of the article seem to describe what "moral" beings should do. This seems unrelated to what "rational" agents must do, which is one of the simpler questions of game theory. Do philosophical arguments guide, for example, how one might design utility functions? I have studied enough game theory and atte…
> what "rational" agents must do, which is one of the simpler questions of game theory
In this way, is Game Theory on the opposite side of Behavioral Economics?
The interest in choice architecture and motivations lead me to think they were related and aligned. Behavioral Economics, afaiu, doesn't count on a heck of rational agency.
Re: Game Theory
#17I'm wondering, what perspective does philosophy add to game theory? All of the philosophical musings at the beginning of the article seem to describe what "moral" beings should do. This seems unrelated to what "rational" agents must do, which is one of the simpler questions of game theory. Do philosophical arguments guide, for example, how one might design utility functions? I have studied enough game theory and atte…
I think game theory isn't too concerned about how one might design utility functions, it is mostly interested in what one should do when utility functions are already given
But the usefulness of game theory is pinned on the accuracy of utility functions.
Re: Game Theory
#18What are some good applications of game theory? Where is it used usefully in the real world?
Re: Game Theory
#19What are some good applications of game theory? Where is it used usefully in the real world?
The design of online auctions and markets.
It gives some insight on how we can design bidding and pricing systems to ensure that people only ever attempt to bid what they truly think an item is worth, given what they know and what they think other bidders know.
The broader goals are to establish when these systems might be "incentive compatible" (truthful bidding) and whether or not these results are robust to variations on the assumed information structure (assumptions governing what agents know, what they think other agents know, and so on).
For the HN crowd, it seems like the related field of algorithmic game theory is more practical. It focuses mainly on the implementation and complexity of various auction pricing mechanisms.
The section on 'coordination games and conventions' is also quite interesting and related to problems in distributed computing. For instance, byzantine fault tolerance and common knowledge of global state shares many similarities with economic systems in which many dispersed agents with subjective beliefs about the 'true state' of the world wish to come to some consensus over some market equilibria or economic fundamentals such as interest rates or market prices in the presence of faulty communication and/or strategic trading behaviours.
In these cases, game theory may provide insights on more robust fault tolerant designs, and economic policies that lead to stabler, and more efficient markets.
Re: Game Theory
#20What are some good applications of game theory? Where is it used usefully in the real world?