Team:Tokyo Tech/Practices
Policy & Practices
contents
0. Medal Criteria
0.1. Design and execution of prisoner’s dilemma game played by the public
to investigate public concerns to GMO.
0.2. Reflecting on our own conception of risks and benefits led to addressing social justice.
0.3. Our attractive project improved in accordance with comments from general public,
can strengthen the public engagement of a two-way dialogue between our team and the public
1. Introduction
2. Dilemma Game
3. Result 1
4. Conclusion 1
5. Result 2
5.1 Modeling
6. Result 2
7. Concideraion
0. Medal Criteria
We think that the following 3 processes of P&P meet both of the silver and gold medal criteria.
0.1. Design and execution of prisoner’s dilemma game played by the public
to investigate public concerns to GMO.
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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. |
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As shown in Fig. 6-1-1., in total, we have |
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Fig. 6-1-1. Our payoff matrix | |
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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. |
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Fig. 6-1-2. The percentange of the number of times paricipants chose each option in each game |
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0.2. Reflecting on our own conception of risks and benefits led to addressing
social justice.
We realized the importance of reflecting on our own conception of risks and benefits, from one of the cases of the prisoner’s dilemma game held among the public. We think that such an original finding is an innovative education to ourselves and meets the criteria of the gold medal.
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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. | |
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0.3. Our attractive project improved in accordance with comments from general public,
can strengthen the public engagement of a two-way dialogue between our team and
the public
Comments from the general public, who are beyond the bench, modified the design and execution of our project, which is the E. coli version of the prisoner’s dilemma, and made the project more attractive for the general public. We have thought that the establishment of a two-way dialogue is important for synthetic biology to be understood from general public, and is important to avoid any prejudice against synthetic biology. In a school festival, thus we explained our projects to attract the public’s interest, and successfully received valuable comments for improving our project. The most important comment led to the introduction of random decision making by E. coli itself, since we had originally planned to express choices of options made by humans, in each prisoner E. coli. Since then, we adopted FimB recombinase for such E. coli decision making. Another integration for the project’s execution to attract public interest, was the introduction of option selecting strategies by the prisoners. We were excited by identifying a famous strategy in the series of games played beyond the bench by the public, and were sure that the introduction of such strategies would make the game more attractive. We thus implemented the tit-for-tat strategy by adopting FimE recombinase into the design of our decision making E. coli. Now we are confident that our E. coli version of the prisoners’ dilemma game is important to strengthen a two-way dialogue to a wide range of public. Even if we try to establish a two-way dialogue, the general public’s apathy towards synthetic biology would make it impossible for us to start a two-way dialogue.
1. Introduction
In our process of having high school students and undergraduate students participate in our prisoner’s dilemma game, we found out that scholars should always have the attitude to reflect their own “payoff matrix”, their own value while their “payoff matrix” is not always correct.
When we joined our school festival and explained about iGEM and our project on May, we found some people having negative opinions against GMO. We got interested and decided to investigate what kind of opinions people in the general public have on GMO.
2. Dilemma Game
To investigate what kind of opinions people in the general public have on GMO, we made 4 types of prisoner’s dilemma game, two normal prisoner’s dilemma game, and two dilemma games having a story related to GMO, each either with or without a dilemma game.
(first a normal prisoner’s dilemma game with a dilemma,
second a normal prisoner’s dilemma game without a dilemma,
third a dilemma game with a story about GMO and a dilemma,
last a dilemma game with a story about GMO without a dilemma.)
(Group 1 is a simple prisoner’s dilemma game where there is a dilemma.
Group 2 also is a simple prisoner’s dilemma game, but there is no dilemma.
Group 3 has the same payoff matrix as Group 1 so there is a dilemma.
Group 4 has the same payoff matrix as Group 2 so there is no dilemma.
For Group 3 and 4, we had a different story for the players to read before looking at the payoff matrix.)
These games were repeated 10 times. Each player chose either cooperation or defection, and pursued their own scores.
We had the participants form a pair of two. Then, we had the pairs divide into 4 groups. Each group played either of the four prisoner’s dilemma games which have been mentioned previously.
The payoff matrix of group 1 is shown in Fig.6-1-2-1. Group 1 is a simple prisoner’s dilemma game where there is a dilemma in the payoff matrix. The payoff matrix of group 2 is shown in Fig.6-1-2-2. Group 2 also is a simple prisoner’s dilemma game, but there is no dilemma in the payoff matrix. In this payoff matrix, players can certainly increase their scores since defecting would simply lead to benefit for both players.
In Fig.6-1-2-3 and Fig.6-1-2-4, we paraphrased ‘C’ that is ‘Cooperate’ in Fig.6-1-2-1 and Fig.6-1-2-2 to ‘Not Use’. We also paraphrased ‘D’ that is ‘Defection’ in Fig.6-1-2-1 and Fig.6-1-2-2 to ‘Use’. The ‘Not use’ means that I do not use GMO. The ‘Use’ means that I use GMO.
 Fig.6-1-2-1. The Payoff Matrix of Group 1 |
 Fig.6-1-2-2. The Payoff Matrix of Group 2 |
For group 3 and 4, we had a different story for the players to read before looking at the payoff matrix. In this story we stated that GM crops are beneficial but are dangerous. We asked if the players would agree or disagree on using GM crops. The payoff matrix of group 3 is shown in Fig.6-1-2-3. Group 3 has the same payoff matrix as Group 1(Fig.6-1-2-1) so there is a dilemma. The payoff matrix of group 4 is shown in Fig.6-1-2-4. Group 4 has the same payoff matrix as Group2 so there is no dilemma. As in group 2, in this payoff matrix, players can certainly increase their scores since choosing “not use” would simply lead to benefit for both players.
 Fig.6-1-2-3. The Payoff Matrix of Group 3 |
 Fig.6-1-2-4. The Payoff Matrix of Group 4 |
We estimated that if the player has the opinion that GMO is dangerous, even when he understands that choosing “not use” would simply profit himself in group 4, the player would chose ‘Not Use’ instead of choosing ‘Use’.
3. Result 1
4. Conclusion 1
5. Result 2
5.1 Modeling
6. Conclusion 2
7. Consideration