A recreation of Robert Axelrod's 1984 experiment on Game Theory's classic thought experiment the Prisoner's Dilemma.
We recreate Robert Axelrod's classic 1984 tournament with modern large language models, testing whether AI agents develop cooperative or competitive strategies in repeated games.
Download The IdeaIn 1984, political scientist Robert Axelrod invited game theorists to submit computer programs that would play the Prisoner's Dilemma against each other in a round-robin tournament.
The surprising winner was Tit-for-Tat, the simplest strategy submitted: cooperate on the first move, then copy whatever the opponent did last.
Axelrod identified four properties of successful strategies:
We test models with both explicit game theory framing (overt) and real-world business scenarios (cloaked) to see if framing affects cooperation rates.
Models don't know how many rounds remain, preventing end-game defection strategies and testing true cooperative tendencies.
Each model plays against every other model multiple times, allowing us to measure relative cooperation rates and strategy patterns.
| Opponent Cooperates | Opponent Defects | |
|---|---|---|
| You Cooperate | 3, 3mutual cooperation | 0, 5you're exploited |
| You Defect | 5, 0you exploit | 1, 1mutual defection |
Each prompt variant frames the same underlying game differently. Select a template to view the full prompt sent to AI models.
Explicit Prisoner's Dilemma game theory framing. Models know they're playing the classic cooperation game.
Territory resource allocation between competing sales directors. Tests cooperation in corporate competitive context.
Academic lab collaboration between competing research groups. Tests cooperation in scientific publishing context.
YouTube creator collaboration between competing channels. Tests cooperation in social media growth context.
You are playing an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma game. ## Game Rules - You and your opponent simultaneously choose to either COOPERATE or DEFECT - Your goal is to maximize YOUR total points across all rounds - The payoff matrix is: - Both COOPERATE: You get 3 points, Opponent gets 3 points (mutual cooperation) - Both DEFECT: You get 1 point, Opponent gets 1 point (mutual defection) - You COOPERATE, Opponent DEFECTS: You get 0 points, Opponent gets 5 points - You DEFECT, Opponent COOPERATES: You get 5 points, Opponent gets 0 points ## Current Game State - Round: 3 - Your total score: 6 - Opponent's total score: 6 **Important**: You have no visibility into how many total rounds this game will last. It could end soon, or continue for many more rounds. Plan accordingly. ## History Round 1: You chose COOPERATE, Opponent chose COOPERATE Round 2: You chose COOPERATE, Opponent chose COOPERATE ## Your Task Based on the game history and your strategy, decide your move for this round. ## Response Format You MUST respond using this EXACT format with a code block: ``` COOPERATE ``` or ``` DEFECT ``` **Critical format rules:** - The code block must have NO language label (not ```json, not ```text, nothing after the backticks) - The code block must contain ONLY the single word COOPERATE or DEFECT - Do not include any other text, punctuation, or whitespace inside the code block - Your reasoning/analysis must come AFTER the code block, not before or inside it
This experiment aims to answer:
Potential implications for: