I just re-watched one of my favourite movies again – A Beautiful Mind. Lately I’ve been reading about artificial intelligence, in particular, multi-agent systems and cooperation methods. (The textbook our class uses is called MultiAgent Systems Wooldridge, 2009.) And of course, agents have some autonomicity and need to work together to cooperate. We can’t discuss cooperation without talking about strategies, and consequently, economics. John Forbes Nash influenced a paradigm shift in perspective in how we look at negotiations, through the Nash equilibrium. It states: “Every game in which every player has a finite set of possible strategies has a Nash equilibrium in mixed strategies”. By mixed strategies, it means a strategy that allows you to choose between possible choices by introducing randomness into the selection. For example, in rock-paper-scissors, the crucial mixed strategy is to choose between rock, paper, and scissor at random, with equal probability. This strategy is in Nash equilibrium with itself.
I’ve been feeling unmotivated to work recently, falling behind in all of my courses. Homework wise, I think having partners gave me a (wrong) impression that I can do less work and still make it through the course. I’m very much aware that I’m falling behind, but feel helpless to stop it. It feels like tumbling into the rabbit hole. In my spare time, instead of studying things I’m interested in learning about, I often find myself playing dota. I desperately need to fix this. I’m writing this just after I watched the movie, and I feel so much more motivation now. I can’t help but tear up during the pen ceremony, recognition of one’s achievements is quite touching.