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The problem is there is no “us” here. The other contestant does not know the strategy in advance. This problem is a variation of the distributed consensus prob
by mritun 5y ago
The problem is there is no “us” here. The other contestant does not know the strategy in advance.
This problem is a variation of the distributed consensus problem in computer science. The canonical solutions (Paxos, Raft, et al) are non-trivial and there are unsolved corner cases. In short - this is problem where they are looking at your approach to problem solving rather than the solution itself.
- AQuantized 5y agoYou just told the other contestant the strategy, making it an us. He has no need to know in advance since you just informed him.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago>He has no need to know in advance since you just informed him. But the other party could have informed you their strategy too. So you tell them "Let's use strategy X", and the same step you receive "Let's use strategy Y" from them. Looks like the first meta-task is to agree on a strategy :^)
- brandonmenc 5y agoAn intermediate step could be to send the two strategies back and forth at random until you both agree on the same one. The arbitrary message "constraint" seems to be an escape hatch.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 5y agoAnd how would you agree on this intermediate step? The other party could offer a similar but different variant of this intermediate step (e.g. use the strategy whose description comes first alphanumerically). You have no way to force the other party to use your random strategy for the intermediate step.
- kybernetikos 5y agoGreat point - it's not quite as trivial as it appears. But I think you could just use the same approach: "Every turn, keep suggesting a strategy until you receive the same strategy you suggest". Once that happens, then you both execute that strategy. Both players are trying to collaborate here, so they'll naturally subordinate themselves on the first opportunity to win the game, they'll implement randomness or backoff naturally.