Split or Steal?
Link to the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0qjK3TWZE8
Comments:
This video clip is from a British game show called “Golden Ball” in which two players play a game similar to the one in prisoner’s dilemma. Each player can choose to “split” or “steal”. If both player choose to split, then they each walk away with half of the prize (6,800 pounds). And if they both choose steal, they walk away with nothing. But if one of them choose to steal and his opponent choose to split, then the one who choose steal can take the whole prize of 13,800 pounds. Before they make decisions, they are allowed to talk to each other for a few minutes.
From this game we can see how effective communication can possibly change the result of prisoner’s dilemma.
The best strategy for each of the player is to convince his opponent to split the golden ball, and if he succeed in doing that, he would walk away with at least half of the money. Nick did it by telling his opponent that he would definitely steal the ball. And if his opponent cooperate with Nick by splitting the ball, he is promised to receive half of the prize money afterwards. If this promise is convincing enough, the opponent would be much less likely to steal the ball since it is much more risky to play steal given such a promise. So the strategy Nick adopted increased the probability of cooperation drastically through effective communication. From this, we can imagine similar things happening for the prisoner’s dilemma problem if the two prisoners are allowed to communicate before they make decisions.