The Joker effect: cooperation driven by destructive agents

TL;DR

This paper introduces a model where rare destructive agents, called jokers, paradoxically promote cooperation in public goods games by creating dynamic interactions that favor cooperative behavior.

Contribution

It presents a novel model showing how malicious jokers induce cooperation through rock-paper-scissors dynamics, a mechanism not previously explored.

Findings

Jokers induce bursts of cooperation in the population.

Jokers create rock-paper-scissors cycles among agents.

Destructive agents can paradoxically enhance cooperation.

Abstract

Understanding the emergence of cooperation is a central issue in evolutionary game theory. The hardest setup for the attainment of cooperation in a population of individuals is the Public Goods game in which cooperative agents generate a common good at their own expenses, while defectors "free-ride" this good. Eventually this causes the exhaustion of the good, a situation which is bad for everybody. Previous results have shown that introducing reputation, allowing for volunteer participation, punishing defectors, rewarding cooperators or structuring agents, can enhance cooperation. Here we present a model which shows how the introduction of rare, malicious agents -that we term jokers- performing just destructive actions on the other agents induce bursts of cooperation. The appearance of jokers promotes a rock-paper-scissors dynamics, where jokers outbeat defectors and cooperators outperform jokers, which are subsequently invaded by defectors. Thus, paradoxically, the existence of destructive agents acting indiscriminately promotes cooperation.