Dilution, Diffusion and Symbiosis in Spatial Prisoner's Dilemma with Reinforcement Learning

2025/07/03 by Gustavo C. Mangold, Mangold, Gustavo C., Heitor C. M. Fernandes +3
Decision Sciences · Social Sciences · #Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI) #Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph) #Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation #Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Physical sciences #Game Theory and Applications #Neural and Evolutionary Computing (cs.NE)

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2507.02211

openalex publication_date 2025/07/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/14 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Recent studies in the spatial prisoner's dilemma games with reinforcement learning have shown that static agents can learn to cooperate through a diverse sort of mechanisms, including noise injection, different types of learning algorithms and neighbours' payoff knowledge.In this work, using an independent multi-agent Q-learning algorithm, we study the effects of dilution and mobility in the spatial version of the prisoner's dilemma. Within this setting, different possible actions for the algorithm are defined, connecting with previous results on the classical, non-reinforcement learning spatial prisoner's dilemma, showcasing the versatility of the algorithm in modeling different game-theoretical scenarios and the benchmarking potential of this approach.As a result, a range of effects is observed, including evidence that games with fixed update rules can be qualitatively equivalent to those with learned ones, as well as the emergence of a symbiotic mutualistic effect between populations that forms when multiple actions are defined.

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• Temporal assortment of cooperators in the spatial prisoner's dilemma