Quantifying the Self-Interest Level of Markov Social Dilemmas
Quantifying the Self-Interest Level of Markov Social Dilemmas
Richard Willis, Yali Du, Joel Z. Leibo, Michael Luck
Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Main Track. Pages 284-292.
https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2025/33
This paper introduces a novel method for estimating the self-interest level of Markov social dilemmas.
We extend the concept of self-interest level from normal-form games to Markov games, providing a quantitative measure of the minimum reward exchange required to align individual and collective interests.
We demonstrate our method on three environments from the Melting Pot suite, representing either common-pool resources or public goods.
Our results illustrate how reward exchange can enable agents to transition from selfish to collective equilibria in a Markov social dilemma.
This work contributes to multi-agent reinforcement learning by providing a practical tool for analysing complex, multistep social dilemmas.
Our findings offer insights into how reward structures can promote or hinder cooperation, with potential applications in areas such as mechanism design.
Keywords:
Agent-based and Multi-agent Systems: MAS: Coordination and cooperation
Agent-based and Multi-agent Systems: MAS: Multi-agent learning
Game Theory and Economic Paradigms: GTEP: Cooperative games
Game Theory and Economic Paradigms: GTEP: Mechanism design
