Playing the wrong game: Bounding externalities in diverse populations of agents

Reshef Meir, David Parkes

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

The robustness of multiagent systems can be affected by mistakes or behavioral biases (e.g., risk-aversion, altruism, toll-sensitivity), with some agents playing the wrong game:' This can change the set of equilibria, and may in turn harm or improve the social welfare of agents in the system. We are interested in bounding what we call the biased price of anarchy (BPcsA) in populations with diverse agent behaviors, which is the ratio between welfare in the wrong equil ibrium and optimal welfare. We study nonatomic routing games, and derive an externality bound that depends on a key topological parameter of the underlying network. We then prove two general BPoA bounds for games with diverse populations: one that relies on the network structure and the average bias of all agents in the population, and one that is independent of the structure but dep ends on the maximal bias. Both types of bounds can be combined with known results to derive concrete BPOA bounds for a variety of specific behaviors (e.g., varied levels of risk-aversion).

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication17th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2018
Pages86-94
Number of pages9
StatePublished - 2018
Event17th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2018 - Stockholm, Sweden
Duration: 10 Jul 201815 Jul 2018

Publication series

NameProceedings of the International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS
Volume1

Conference

Conference17th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2018
Country/TerritorySweden
CityStockholm
Period10/07/1815/07/18

Keywords

  • Behavioral game theory
  • Price of anarchy
  • Selfish routing

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Software
  • Control and Systems Engineering

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