Exploiting the machine
Human cooperation with artificial agents in prisoner's dilemma
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21465868 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Iván Barreda‐Tarrazona (0000-0002-1247-0582), Iván Barreda-Tarrazona (Universitat Jaume I), Ainhoa Jaramillo-Gutiérrez (0000-0002-1359-4333, Universitat Jaume I), Marina Pavan (0000-0002-4313-6472, Universitat Jaume I, corresponding author), Gerardo Sabater-Grande (Universitat Jaume I) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 116 |
| Pages | 102925 |
| Publication date | 2026-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Economic Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0167-4870 • E-ISSN: 1872-7719 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.joep.2026.102925 |
| OpenAlex | W7167598109 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 20 |
We conduct a laboratory experiment using one-shot Prisoner's Dilemma (PD) and finitely Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma (RPD) games to study cooperation with an artificial agent that both mimics human behavior and acts on behalf of a human stakeholder. Controlling for beliefs, emotions, and personal characteristics, we investigate the underlying drivers of cooperation differences between a human baseline (“Humans”) and the artificial agents (“AA”) treatment. We find that the likelihood of cooperation does not depend on whether the counterpart is human or artificial in the one-shot PD games. In the RPD games, however, cooperation is less likely when participants play with an artificial agent than when they play with other humans. By combining individual decisions and beliefs, we identify an “exploiting-the-partner” behavior: choosing to defect while expecting the partner to cooperate. Our results suggest that participants are persistently more likely to exploit artificial agents than human partners when they anticipate cooperation, including across repeated interactions and even if the artificial agent is acting on behalf of a human counterpart
Dilemma · Multi-agent system · Prisoner's dilemma · Social dilemma · Psychiatry, Mental Health, Neuroscience · Reinforcement Learning in Robotics · Social Robot Interaction and HRI
Human cooperation
Subject pool recruitment procedures
Dictator games
Z-Tree
Strategic interactions between humans and artificial intelligence
I did most of the work! Three sources of bias in bargaining with joint production
Trust in humans and robots
Rational Cooperation in the Finitely Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |