An Open Framework for the Reproducible Study of the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma

Authors

  • Vincent Knight Development; Cardiff University
  • Owen Campbell Development; Not affiliated
  • Marc Harper Development; Not affiliated
  • Karol Langner Development; Google Inc., Mountain View, CA
  • James Campbell Development; Cardiff University
  • Thomas Campbell Development; St. Nicholas Catholic High School, Hartford
  • Alex Carney Development; Cardiff Universit
  • Martin Chorley Development; Cardiff University
  • Cameron Davidson-Pilon Development; Not affiliated
  • Kristian Glass Development; Not affiliated
  • Nikoleta Glynatsi Development; Cardiff University
  • Tomáš Ehrlich Development; Not affiliated
  • Martin Jones Development; Not affiliated
  • Georgios Koutsovoulos Development; The University of Edinburgh
  • Holly Tibble Development; Not affiliated
  • Jochen Müller Development; Not affiliated
  • Geraint Palmer Development; Cardiff University
  • Piotr Petunov Development; Not affiliated
  • Paul Slavin Development; The University of Manchester
  • Timothy Standen Development; Cardiff University
  • Luis Visintini Development; Not affiliated
  • Karl Molden Development; Not affiliated

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5334/jors.125

Keywords:

Game Theory, Prisoners Dilemma, Python

Abstract

The Axelrod library is an open source Python package that allows for reproducible game theoretic research into the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma. This area of research began in the 1980s but suffers from a lack of documentation and test code. The goal of the library is to provide such a resource, with facilities for the design of new strategies and interactions between them, as well as conducting tournaments and ecological simulations for populations of strategies.

With a growing collection of 139 strategies, the library is a also a platform for an original tournament that, in itself, is of interest to the game theoretic community.

This paper describes the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma, the Axelrod library and its development, and insights gained from some novel research.

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Published

2016-08-31

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 1 (2016)

Section

Software Metapapers

License

Copyright (c) 2016 The Author(s)

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