Insights into the Impact of Social Networks on Evolutionary Games

Abstract

The chapter explores the use of evolutionary game theory (EGT) to model the dynamics of adaptive opponent strategies for a large population of players. In particular, it explores effects of information propagation through social networks in evolutionary games. The key underlying phenomenon that the information diffusion aims to capture is that reasoning about the experiences of acquaintances can dramatically impact the dynamics of a society. The chapter presents experimental results from agent-based simulations that show the impact of diffusion through social networks on the player strategies of an evolutionary game and the sensitivity of the dynamics to features of the social network.