Wikipedia offers the following description of the classical prisoner's dilemma:

Two suspects, A and B, are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal: if one testifies for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must make the choice of whether to betray the other or to remain silent. However, neither prisoner knows for sure what choice the other prisoner will make. So this dilemma poses the question: How should the prisoners act?

The dilemma can be summarized thus:

Basically, each prisoner has only two choices:

1. Betrays or defects
2. Cooperates and stays silent

Moreover each prisoner must choose without knowing what his accomplice has chosen, thereby making the situation more interesting. But for any prisoner, the dominant strategy is to defect. If the prisoner B stays silent, it would be better for prisoner A to defect. Even if prisoner B defects, it would still be better for prisoner to defect as he/she will be serving 5 years instead of 10. But here's the rub: since all rational players will defect (all things being equal), each prisoner will end up serving 5 years in prison. The system optimal solution is for both to cooperate so that if both prisoners stay silent, they each serves 6 months. In other words, cooperation is the way to go.

What makes prisoner's dilemma even more interesting is how it can be used to explain the one of the behaviors I commonly witness when I was traveling in Asia: the lack of cooperation. I have observed that the lack of social cooperation (sometime it is just downright selfishness) is pervasive in many Asian societies (there are exceptions but the attitude of "everyone for him/herself" seems to be most entrenched in most developing Asian countries). Try taking the subway in China or driving in India, and you will know what I mean. I am no saint myself. Within hours of assimilation in a new city in Asia, I, too, think "If everyone is looking out for him or herself. Why shouldn't I?" That said, my argument isn't a moral diatribe or even a criticism of any sorts. But rather how I can explain traffic gridlock in China and India using the concepts of the prisoner's dilemma.

I have seen it so many times in China and India, people there love to run the red light and most often than not, creating a gridlock that looks like this:

I was traveling on a taxi from New Delhi to Jaipur two months ago. Halfway through the journey, J.K. the taxi driver and I, came to an intersection in a town where the traffic was heavy. As we were about to cross the intersection, the red light came on. Even though there was simply no room to maneuver ahead, every driver in the moving traffic including J.K. floored the pedal and raced ahead as if stopping behind a red light was a death sentence. But in doing so, we actually created something that very much looked like the scene in the picture above. We wasted a good 3 minutes as drivers rushed to untangle the mess they had created. So I asked J.K. whom I had got to know very well by now why he and everyone around him did this even though it doesn't serve anyone any good. With a thick Indian accent, he answered: "We always have to get ahead." I said: "But J.K. there's a reason why we need to stop at the red light." He responded: "No sir, you won't survive if you play nice."

I disagree with J.K. I don't think cooperation is a sign of weakness or niceness. If J.K. was the only person running the red light, that's fine by me since the traffic would still flow. But if everyone is doing it, that's a different story. On the contrary, when drivers actually cooperate and observe traffic rules (a system optimal solution for everyone involved), we can all get through it a little faster by avoiding a traffic carnage. Indeed, I read it from somewhere before that selfishness can go hand in hand with cooperation. So I think the lesson of the prisoner's dilemma in real life is: whether you are altruistic or selfish, the best strategy over the long term should be mutual cooperation.

2/12/2008 11:58:41 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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