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A comparison of zero- and minimal-intelligence agendas in majority-rule voting models

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Brewer

    (Economic and Financial Technology Consulting LLC)

  • Jeremy Juybari

    (Faster Logic LLC
    University of Maine)

  • Raymond Moberly

    (Faster Logic LLC)

Abstract

Emergent behavior in repeated collective decisions of minimally intelligent agents—who at each step in time invoke majority rule to choose between a status quo and a random challenge—can manifest through the long-term stationary probability distributions of a Markov chain. We use this known technique to compare two kinds of voting agendas: a zero-intelligence agenda that chooses the challenger uniformly at random and a minimally intelligent agenda that chooses the challenger from the union of the status quo and the set of winning challengers. We use Google Co-Lab’s GPU accelerated computing environment to compute stationary distributions for some simple examples from spatial-voting and budget-allocation scenarios. We find that the voting model using the zero-intelligence agenda converges more slowly, but in some cases to better outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Brewer & Jeremy Juybari & Raymond Moberly, 2024. "A comparison of zero- and minimal-intelligence agendas in majority-rule voting models," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 19(3), pages 403-437, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jeicoo:v:19:y:2024:i:3:d:10.1007_s11403-023-00387-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s11403-023-00387-8
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Emergent behavior; Zero and minimally intelligent agents; Majority rule; Spatial voting; Budget allocation; Limits of artificial intelligence; Markov chain applications;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C63 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computational Techniques
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

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