How Quantum Prisoner’s Dilemma Can Support Negotiations

Abstract

Decision-making by the two negotiating parties is simulated by a prisoner’s dilemma game. The game is formulated in a quantum manner, where players strategies are unitary transformations of qubits built over the basis of opposite decision options. Quantum strategies are correlated through the mechanism of quantum entanglement and the result of the game is obtained by the collapse of the resulting transformed state. The range of strategies allowed for quantum players is richer than in case of a classical game and therefore the result of the game can be better optimized. On the other hand, the quantum game is save against eavesdropping and the players can be assured that this type of quantum arbitration is fair. We show that quantum prisoner’s dilemma has more favorable Nash equilibria than its classical analog and they are close to the Pareto optimal solutions. Some economical examples of utilizing quantum game Nash equilibria are proposed.