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Game theory is a fun way to tell stories... but it is seldom predictive. Conversely, machine learning seldom provides a story (at least in a human readable for
by arcanus 10y ago
Game theory is a fun way to tell stories... but it is seldom predictive.
Conversely, machine learning seldom provides a story (at least in a human readable form) but it is predictive by nature.
- taeric 10y agoThis "post-hoc" nature of game theory bothers me a lot. People love the stories they can tell about things using game theory, but I have seen far fewer example of people understanding a new scenario using it.
- oli5679 10y agoAuctions are good example of a domain where game theory (and reverse game theory or mechanism design) often makes useful predictions and has practical influence. Google and Facebook use mechanisms that approximate the VCG allocation rule for some of their ad content and know that they should not be able to find massive improvements on this due to theory. I agree that it is often less predictive and more like stories.
- nabla9 10y agoGame theory is part of the toolbox used to design, study and understand machine learning algorithms. It's currently the bleeding edge of machine learning.
- Xcelerate 10y agoPersonally, I think information theory is going to end up being a lot more important to AI than game theory.
- sgt101 10y agoWell here as are a few predictions made by game theory. 1. There wasn't a nuclear war today 2. Every telco in the world gives large chunks of money to governements due to auctions 3. Ebay sellers get higher prices than they should Also, I can read association rules, decision trees and lisp programs ok... and yet my machine learning programs (ok ok nowadays the ones I get out of various apis and packages) have written them...
- spectrum1234 10y agoWhy the eBay one?
- taeric 10y ago1 and 3 aren't predictions, but post-hoc explanations. There is an argument that game theory helped lead to 1, I suppose. But, in general, I think that is giving them more credit than they would even ask for. Mutually assured destruction is far from their central theorem. 2 could just as easily be explained by standard supply/demand scenarios. There is a very limited supply of that is auctioned off to telcos and they have a very vested interest in buying as much as they can. Even if they are not going to utilize it.
- sgt101 10y agoWhat!!! 1) You can allocate credit how you like, but there's a dominant strategy for that too. 2)Ok for the UK case see http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/klemperer/biggestpaper.pdf http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/klemperer/biggestpaper.pdf And look them up. Interestingly your position makes me wonder if you are actually an exec working in a senior finance position in a major telco?
- tpm 10y agoWell, game theory can be used to create outcomes: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_design https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_design