Boolean Observation Games

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: van Ditmarsch, Hans, Simon, Sunil
Format: Preprint
Published: 2022
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author van Ditmarsch, Hans
Simon, Sunil
author_facet van Ditmarsch, Hans
Simon, Sunil
contents We introduce Boolean Observation Games, a subclass of multi-player finite strategic games with incomplete information and qualitative objectives. In Boolean observation games, each player is associated with a finite set of propositional variables of which only it can observe the value, and it controls whether and to whom it can reveal that value. It does not control the given, fixed, value of variables. Boolean observation games are a generalization of Boolean games, a well-studied subclass of strategic games but with complete information, and wherein each player controls the value of its variables. In Boolean observation games, player goals describe multi-agent knowledge of variables. As in classical strategic games, players choose their strategies simultaneously and therefore observation games capture aspects of both imperfect and incomplete information. They require reasoning about sets of outcomes given sets of indistinguishable valuations of variables. An outcome relation between such sets determines what the Nash equilibria are. We present various outcome relations, including a qualitative variant of ex-post equilibrium. We identify conditions under which, given an outcome relation, Nash equilibria are guaranteed to exist. We also study the complexity of checking for the existence of Nash equilibria and of verifying if a strategy profile is a Nash equilibrium. We further study the subclass of Boolean observation games with `knowing whether' goal formulas, for which the satisfaction does not depend on the value of variables. We show that each such Boolean observation game corresponds to a Boolean game and vice versa, by a different correspondence, and that both correspondences are precise in terms of existence of Nash equilibria.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2202_03637
institution arXiv
publishDate 2022
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Boolean Observation Games
van Ditmarsch, Hans
Simon, Sunil
Computer Science and Game Theory
Artificial Intelligence
We introduce Boolean Observation Games, a subclass of multi-player finite strategic games with incomplete information and qualitative objectives. In Boolean observation games, each player is associated with a finite set of propositional variables of which only it can observe the value, and it controls whether and to whom it can reveal that value. It does not control the given, fixed, value of variables. Boolean observation games are a generalization of Boolean games, a well-studied subclass of strategic games but with complete information, and wherein each player controls the value of its variables. In Boolean observation games, player goals describe multi-agent knowledge of variables. As in classical strategic games, players choose their strategies simultaneously and therefore observation games capture aspects of both imperfect and incomplete information. They require reasoning about sets of outcomes given sets of indistinguishable valuations of variables. An outcome relation between such sets determines what the Nash equilibria are. We present various outcome relations, including a qualitative variant of ex-post equilibrium. We identify conditions under which, given an outcome relation, Nash equilibria are guaranteed to exist. We also study the complexity of checking for the existence of Nash equilibria and of verifying if a strategy profile is a Nash equilibrium. We further study the subclass of Boolean observation games with `knowing whether' goal formulas, for which the satisfaction does not depend on the value of variables. We show that each such Boolean observation game corresponds to a Boolean game and vice versa, by a different correspondence, and that both correspondences are precise in terms of existence of Nash equilibria.
title Boolean Observation Games
topic Computer Science and Game Theory
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2202.03637