Zero determinant strategy is just another short-term adaptation

The Scientist “A Twist in Evolutionary Game Theory: Biologists demonstrate the instability of employing a selfish strategy in the prisoner’s dilemma game”

Nature Communications “Evolutionary instability of zero-determinant strategies demonstrates that winning is not everything”

I am so glad to see that someone did the math and simulations to look at the long-term stability of this selfish strategy. All that Dyson and Press’ discovery really suggests is that the adaptive challenges faced by cooperative strategies are more complex than we originally thought. As this really comprehensive study shows, cooperative strategies can over longer periods of time eliminate the zero-determinant strategy. This happens regardless of whether strategies are fixed or can evolve. In the end, the Dyson/Press strategy is not all that interesting.

I am also excited to the see the piece in The Scientist using an EGIP image.