Joshua B. Plotkin
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View article: Collective artificial intelligence and evolutionary dynamics.
Collective artificial intelligence and evolutionary dynamics. Open
Collective behavior is ubiquitous and highly structured in the natural world, allowing individuals to coordinate and cooperate in pursuit of common aims. The field of evolutionary game theory helps explain how structured collective behavio…
View article: Institutions of public judgment established by social contract and taxation
Institutions of public judgment established by social contract and taxation Open
Indirect reciprocity is a compelling explanation for stable cooperation in a large society: Those who cooperate appropriately earn a good standing, so that others are more likely to cooperate with them. However, this mechanism requires a p…
View article: Unilateral incentive alignment in two-agent stochastic games
Unilateral incentive alignment in two-agent stochastic games Open
Multiagent learning is challenging when agents face mixed-motivation interactions, where conflicts of interest arise as agents independently try to optimize their respective outcomes. Recent advancements in evolutionary game theory have id…
View article: Evolution of division of labor on two public goods with continuous investments
Evolution of division of labor on two public goods with continuous investments Open
Species throughout the tree of life have evolved to produce multiple public goods, and they often exhibit division of labor, meaning that subpopulations have different allocations of effort across the goods. Despite a robust theoretical li…
View article: Social learning with complex contagion
Social learning with complex contagion Open
Traditional models of social learning by imitation are based on simple contagion—where an individual may imitate a more successful neighbor following a single interaction. But real-world contagion processes are often complex, meaning that …
View article: Institutions of public judgment established by social contract and taxation
Institutions of public judgment established by social contract and taxation Open
Indirect reciprocity is a plausible mechanism for sustaining cooperation: people cooperate with those who have a good reputation, which can be acquired by helping others. However, this mechanism requires the population to agree on who has …
View article: The evolution of social behaviors and risk preferences in settings with uncertainty
The evolution of social behaviors and risk preferences in settings with uncertainty Open
Humans update their social behavior in response to past experiences and changing environments. Behavioral decisions are further complicated by uncertainty in the outcome of social interactions. Faced with uncertainty, some individuals exhi…
View article: Social learning with complex contagion
Social learning with complex contagion Open
We introduce a mathematical model that combines the concepts of complex contagion with payoff-biased imitation, to describe how social behaviors spread through a population. Traditional models of social learning by imitation are based on s…
View article: A mechanistic model of gossip, reputations, and cooperation
A mechanistic model of gossip, reputations, and cooperation Open
Social reputations facilitate cooperation: those who help others gain a good reputation, making them more likely to receive help themselves. But when people hold private views of one another, this cycle of indirect reciprocity breaks down,…
View article: Indirect reciprocity with Bayesian reasoning and biases
Indirect reciprocity with Bayesian reasoning and biases Open
Reputations can foster cooperation by indirect reciprocity: if I am good to you then others will be good to me. But this mechanism for cooperation in one-shot interactions only works when people agree on who is good and who is bad. Errors …
View article: Convergence of reputations under indirect reciprocity
Convergence of reputations under indirect reciprocity Open
Previous research has shown how indirect reciprocity can promote cooperation through evolutionary game theoretic models. Most work in this field assumes a separation of time-scales: individuals' reputations equilibrate at a fast time scale…
View article: When do stereotypes undermine indirect reciprocity?
When do stereotypes undermine indirect reciprocity? Open
Social reputations provide a powerful mechanism to stimulate human cooperation, but observing individual reputations can be cognitively costly. To ease this burden, people may rely on proxies such as stereotypes, or generalized reputations…
View article: Can institutions foster cooperation by wealth redistribution?
Can institutions foster cooperation by wealth redistribution? Open
Theoretical models prescribe how institutions can promote cooperation in a population by imposing appropriate punishments or rewards on individuals. However, many real-world institutions are not sophisticated or responsive enough to ensure…
View article: History constrains the evolution of efficient color naming, enabling historical inference
History constrains the evolution of efficient color naming, enabling historical inference Open
Color naming in natural languages is not arbitrary: It reflects efficient partitions of perceptual color space [T. Regier, P. Kay, N. Khetarpal, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 104 , 1436–1441 (2007)] modulated by the relative needs to commu…
View article: The distorting effects of producer strategies: Why engagement does not reveal consumer preferences for misinformation
The distorting effects of producer strategies: Why engagement does not reveal consumer preferences for misinformation Open
A great deal of empirical research has examined who falls for misinformation and why. Here, we introduce a formal game-theoretic model of engagement with news stories that captures the strategic interplay between (mis)information consumers…
View article: A mechanistic model of gossip, reputations, and cooperation
A mechanistic model of gossip, reputations, and cooperation Open
Social reputations facilitate cooperation: those who help others gain a good reputation, making them more likely to receive help themselves. But when people hold private views of one another, this cycle of indirect reciprocity breaks down,…
View article: Indirect reciprocity with Bayesian reasoning and biases
Indirect reciprocity with Bayesian reasoning and biases Open
Reputations can foster cooperation by indirect reciprocity: if I am good to you then others will be good to me. But this mechanism for cooperation in one-shot interactions only works when people agree on who is good and who is bad. Errors …
View article: The evolution of forecasting for decision-making in dynamic environments
The evolution of forecasting for decision-making in dynamic environments Open
Climate change and technological advances are reshaping ecosystems and societies. Strategic choices that were best yesterday may be sub-optimal tomorrow; and environmental conditions that were once taken for granted may soon cease to exist…
View article: The coercive logic of fake news
The coercive logic of fake news Open
The spread of misinformation and "fake news" continues to be a major focus of public concern. A great deal of research has examined who falls for misinformation and why, and what can be done to make people more discerning consumers of news…
View article: Quantifying the evolution of harmony and novelty in western classical music
Quantifying the evolution of harmony and novelty in western classical music Open
Music is a complex socio-cultural construct, which fascinates researchers in diverse fields, as well as the general public. Understanding the historical development of music may help us understand perceptual and cognition, while also yield…
View article: Finite population effects on optimal communication for social foragers
Finite population effects on optimal communication for social foragers Open
Foraging is crucial for animals to survive. Many species forage in groups, as individuals communicate to share information about the location of available resources. For example, eusocial foragers, such as honey bees and many ants, recruit…
View article: Evolution of norms for judging social behavior
Evolution of norms for judging social behavior Open
Reputations provide a powerful mechanism to sustain cooperation, as individuals cooperate with those of good social standing. But how should someone’s reputation be updated as we observe their social behavior, and when will a population co…
View article: Evolutionary dynamics within and among competing groups
Evolutionary dynamics within and among competing groups Open
Biological and social systems are structured at multiple scales, and the incentives of individuals who interact in a group may diverge from the collective incentive of the group as a whole. Mechanisms to resolve this tension are responsibl…
View article: Historical constraints on the evolution of efficient color naming
Historical constraints on the evolution of efficient color naming Open
Color naming in natural languages is not arbitrary: it reflects efficient partitions of perceptual color space modulated by the relative needs to communicate about different colors. These psychophysical and communicative constraints help e…
View article: Reproductive variance can drive behavioral dynamics
Reproductive variance can drive behavioral dynamics Open
The concept of fitness is central to evolution, but it quantifies only the expected number of offspring an individual will produce. The actual number of offspring is also subject to demographic stochasticity—that is, randomness associated …
View article: Strategy evolution on dynamic networks
Strategy evolution on dynamic networks Open
Models of strategy evolution on static networks help us understand how population structure can promote the spread of traits like cooperation. One key mechanism is the formation of altruistic spatial clusters, where neighbors of a cooperat…