By receiving opinions from public, we integrated, into our project, a prisoner’s dilemma game played by the high school and undergraduate students, who are people outside of iGEM, to investigate the stereotype of concerns about gene modification. Since we received opinions from the public who concerned the sustainability, safety, and security of gene modification, we designed and executed the prisoner’s dilemma game played by the public.

As shown in Fig. 6-1-1., in total, we have
2 (Condition A) × 2 (Condition B) = 4 types of payoff matrix. In Condition A, there either is a dilemma, or no dilemma. In Condition B, there either is a story about GMO, or is no story about GMO.In the games in which we incorporated the conception of GMO into the story (Group 3 and 4), we wrote the sum of the cost and benefit by using GMO, as the score in each cell. If the games in which there is no dilemma (or in other words the Nash equilibrium matches with the Pareto efficient) (Group 2), are played to simply compete the scores, choosing the bottom right option would be rational.We designed this game, so that when we combine this same payoff matrix with the story of GMO, using GMO will lead to high scores.

Fig. 6-1-1. Our payoff matrix

Through execution of the games, we found that the public chose the option, in which we predicted is affected by the stereotype that “GMO is dangerous.” When we compared the options of the participants by each payoff matrix (Fig.6-1-2 circle and circle in group 2, not Use and not Use in group 4), despite the fact whether there is a dilemma or not, there were more people choosing the option of not using GMO. From this result, there is a possible interpretation that the public has concerns for sustainability, safety, and security of gene modification, which were not shown in the payoff matrix. To precisely examine further on this interpretation, we would like to increase the subjects playing the prisoner’s dilemma game.

Fig. 6-1-2. The percentange of the number of times paricipants chose each option in each game

In the game played among high school students and undergraduate students, who are all people outside of iGEM, we identified an example where the player himself realized the irrationality of choosing the options adhered to the stereotype of the term GMO. So we temporarily thought of asserting that “each individual’s constant thinking of whether the payoff matrix is correct or not, will lead to the increase of the score for the entire society”. However, from our full year experience in iGEM, we realized the necessity of verifying from a different point of view. In other words, we realized that we researchers ourselves must also continuously reflect on the costs, benefits, and risks of the science we discover (Graph X). In the workshop that we attended as our initial activity in iGEM, we learned from social scientists, the danger of grounding on the deficit model, which fixes on the idea that the general public is ignorant, and the importance of the two-way dialogue between society and researchers. From this past experience, we realized that it wasn’t the participants of the dilemma game who were misinterpreting the payoff matrix from the stereotype of the term GMO, but it might have been the members of iGEM Tokyo Tech who were misinterpreting both the costs and benefits of GMO.The value of our payoff matrix in the dilemma game was indeed designed from assumptions for both the costs and benefits of GMO. Now we address that in order to understand the correct payoff matrix of technology, instead of forcing a concept that is constructed only by specialists, one-sidedly to the general public, the posture of cooperating and thinking together with the general public, is important in social justice.Through these process written above, we think that we have already met the silver and gold medal criteria, since we have demonstrated an innovative human practice involving public engagement, by establishing a two-way dialogue.

Fig.3-7-4-1.