Measuring the benefits of lying in MARA under egalitarian social welfare

TL;DR

This paper investigates how agents might benefit from lying in resource allocation problems aimed at egalitarian social welfare, using genetic algorithms to evaluate the advantages of deception.

Contribution

It introduces a practical approach employing genetic algorithms to analyze the benefits of lying in egalitarian resource distribution scenarios.

Findings

Lying can increase individual utility in resource allocation.

Genetic algorithms effectively model strategic deception.

Benefits of lying vary with different resource distributions.

Abstract

When some resources are to be distributed among a set of agents following egalitarian social welfare, the goal is to maximize the utility of the agent whose utility turns out to be minimal. In this context, agents can have an incentive to lie about their actual preferences, so that more valuable resources are assigned to them. In this paper we analyze this situation, and we present a practical study where genetic algorithms are used to assess the benefits of lying under different situations.