Leslie Luthi

Hawks and Doves on small-world networks.

We explore the Hawk-Dove game on networks with topologies ranging from regular lattices to random graphs with small-world networks in between. This is done by means of computer simulations using several update rules for the population evolutionary dynamics. We find the overall result that cooperation is sometimes inhibited and sometimes enhanced in those network structures, with respect to the mixing population case. The differences are due to different update rules and depend on the gain-to-cost ratio. We analyze and qualitatively explain this behavior by using local topological arguments.

Social Dilemmas And Cooperation In Complex Networks

In this paper we extend the investigation of cooperation in some classical evolutionary games on populations where the network of interactions among individuals is of the scale-free type. We show that the update rule, the payoff computation and, to some extent the timing of the operations, have a marked influence on the transient dynamics and on the amount of cooperation that can be established at equilibrium. We also study the dynamical behavior of the populations and their evolutionary stability.

The structure of the genetic programming collaboration network

The genetic programming bibliography aims to be the most complete reference of papers on genetic programming. In addition to locating publications, it contains coauthor and coeditor relationships which have not previously been studied. These reveal some similarities and differences between our field and collaborative social networks in other scientific fields.

Evolution of Cooperation and Coordination in a Dynamically Networked Society

Situations of conflict giving rise to social dilemmas are widespread in society and game theory is one major way in which they can be investigated. Starting from the observation that individuals in society interact through networks of acquaintances, we model the co-evolution of the agents’ strategies and of the social network itself using two prototypical games, the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the Stag-Hunt. Allowing agents to dismiss ties and establish new ones, we find that cooperation and coordination can be achieved through the self-organization of the social network, a result that is nontrivial, especially in the Prisoner’s Dilemma case. The evolution and stability of cooperation implies the condensation of agents exploiting particular game strategies into strong and stable clusters which are more densely connected, even in the more difficult case of the Prisoner’s Dilemma.

Mutual trust and cooperation in the evolutionary hawks–doves game

Using a new dynamical network model of society in which pairwise interactions are weighted according to mutual satisfaction, we show that cooperation is the norm in the hawks-doves game when individuals are allowed to break ties with undesirable neighbors and to make new acquaintances in their extended neighborhood. Moreover, cooperation is robust with respect to rather strong strategy perturbations. We also discuss the empirical structure of the emerging networks, and the reasons that allow cooperators to thrive in the population. Given the metaphorical importance of this game for social interaction, this is an encouraging positive result as standard theory for large mixing populations prescribes that a certain fraction of defectors must always exist at equilibrium.

Evolutionary games on networks and payoff invariance under replicator dynamics

The commonly used accumulated payoff scheme is not invariant with respect to shifts of payoff values when applied locally in degree-inhomogeneous population structures. We propose a suitably modified payoff scheme and we show both formally and by numerical simulation, that it leaves the replicator dynamics invariant with respect to affine transformations of the game payoff matrix. We then show empirically that, using the modified payoff scheme, an interesting amount of cooperation can be reached in three paradigmatic non-cooperative two-person games in populations that are structured according to graphs that have a marked degree inhomogeneity, similar to actual graphs found in society. The three games are the Prisoners Dilemma, the Hawks-Doves and the Stag-Hunt. This confirms previous important observations that, under certain conditions, cooperation may emerge in such network-structured populations, even though standard replicator dynamics for mixing populations prescribes equilibria in which cooperation is totally absent in the Prisoners Dilemma, and it is less widespread in the other two games.

The genetic programming collaboration network and its communities

Useful information about scientific collaboration structures and patterns can be inferred from computer databases of published papers. The genetic programming bibliography is the most complete reference of papers on GP. In addition to locating publications, it contains coauthor and coeditor relationships from which a more complete picture of the field emerges. We treat these relationships as undirected small world graphs whose study reveals the community structure of the GP collaborative social network. Automatic analysis discovers new communities and highlights new facets of them. The investigation reveals many similarities between GP and coauthorship networks in other scientific fields but also some subtle differences such as a smaller central network component and a high clustering.

Evolutionary dilemmas in a social network

We simulate the prisoners dilemma and hawk-dove games on a real social acquaintance network. Using a discrete analogue of replicator dynamics, we show that surprisingly high levels of cooperation can be achieved, contrary to what happens in unstructured mixing populations. Moreover, we empirically show that cooperation in this network is stable with respect to invasion by defectors.

Emergence of structure and stability in the prisoner’s dilemma on networks

We study a population of individuals playing the prisoner’s dilemma game. Individual strategies are invariable but the network of relationships between players is allowed to change over time following simple rules based on the players’ degree of satisfaction. In the long run, cooperators tend to cluster together in order to maintain a high average payoff and to protect themselves from exploiting defectors. We investigated both synchronous and asynchronous network dynamics, observing that asynchronous update leads to more stable states, and is more tolerant to various kinds of perturbations in the system.