(Gaming) The Prisoner's Dilemma
Milgram's Combinatorial Defensive Paradigm (2008)
Overview
Using Johnny Lee's open source wiimote instructions, Rebecca and I are developing an open source AI game which utilizes the wiimote and cheap or free parameters to enact an iterative prisoner's dilemma.
Johnny Chung Lee's wii projects website hosts a small stepping stone into the possibilities of the low-cost highly sophisticated infrared camera used in the Nintendo Wii Remote TM. Mr. Lee is a Ph. D. graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University and has been featured at such festivals as the 2008 Maker Faire and the prestigious 2008 TED conference to share his projects utilizing low cost and easily accessible parts to open elitist research for the common man.
Like my own projects, I am interested in the dissemination of information, what form it takes, and in how we are able to map the dissolution of elitist information to the public. This particular project uses this platform to test power dynamics between two people.
Statement
In the post-World War II climate, two theories of interactive behavior were separately developed to understand better the individual's connection to authority and optimizing benefits. Milgram's "Behavioral Study of Obedience" disavowed the nationalist belief that only the Germans could create atrocity, while at the RAND corporation, the "Prisoner's Dilemma" defined the basic elements of game theory: people optimize their payoffs.
Like my past work, this piece functions in a scientific critique sometimes referred to as scientistic research. This scientistic research probes the negative research spaces avoided by scientific experimentation allowing us to utilize these game platforms to evaluate our (tacit?) participation and connection to the military industrial complex. Using social gaming technology, I have built an iterative prisoner's dilemma. Participants – in pairs consisting of friends – are given the choice to sacrifice their personal gain, or sacrifice their friend to preserve themselves.
Documentation
applying the shock device
close up on the armband
showing points of contact for the punishment stimulus
dealing with internal conflict