[TMP-109] Social dilemma with information asymmetry

Contact person: Jennifer Renoux (jennifer.renoux@oru.se)

Internal Partners:

1. Örebro University (ORU), Jennifer Renoux
2. Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Ana Paiva

 

Social dilemmas are situations in which the interests of the individuals’ conflict with those of the team, and in which maximum benefit can be achieved if enough individuals adopt prosocial behavior (i.e., focus on the team’s benefit at their own expense). In a human-agent team, the adoption of prosocial behavior is influenced by various features displayed by the artificial agent, such as transparency, or small talk. One feature still unstudied is expository communication, meaning communication performed with the intent of providing factual information without favoring any party.We implemented a public goods game with information asymmetry (i.e., agents in the game do not have the same information about the environment) and performed a user-study in which we manipulated the amount of information that the artificial agent provides to the team and examined how varying levels of information increase or decrease human prosocial behavior.

Results Summary

This micro-project has led to the design and development of an experimental platform to test how communication from an artificial agent influences a human’s pro-social behavior.

The platform comprises the following components:

– a fully configurable mixed-motive public good game, allowing a single human player to play with artificial agents, and an artificial “coach” giving feedback on the human’s action. Configuration is made through json files (number and types of agents, type of feedback, game configuration…). The game is called “Pest Control”, which implements a public good game during which players must prevent a spreading pest from reaching their farm while gathering as many coins as possible. An artificial agent can give feedback to the player. In this implementation, only one human player can control the game and 4 artificial agents are playing with them. This game has been used as the base for a user study investigating the impact of expository information on a human’s prosociality.

– a set of questionnaires designed to evaluate the prosocial behavior of the human player during a game

Tangible Outcomes

1. Pest control game demo https://jrenoux.github.io/pestcontrolgame/demo/index.html
2. The Pest Control Game experimental platform – Jennifer Renoux*, Joana Campos, Filipa Correia, Lucas Morillo, Neziha Akalin, Ana Paiva https://github.com/jrenoux/pest-control-game-source
3. Video presentation summarizing the project