Individual Rationality in Topological Distance Games is Surprisingly Hard

In the recently introduced topological distance games, strategic agents need to be assigned to a subset of vertices of a topology. In the assignment, the utility of an agent depends on both the agent's inherent utilities for other agents and its distance from them on the topology. We study the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2024-04
Main Authors: Deligkas, Argyrios, Eiben, Eduard, Knop, Dušan, Šimon Schierreich
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Apexes
Complexity
Games
Topology
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:In the recently introduced topological distance games, strategic agents need to be assigned to a subset of vertices of a topology. In the assignment, the utility of an agent depends on both the agent's inherent utilities for other agents and its distance from them on the topology. We study the computational complexity of finding individually rational outcomes; this notion is widely assumed to be the very minimal stability requirement and requires that the utility of every agent in a solution is non-negative. We perform a comprehensive study of the problem's complexity, and we prove that even in very basic cases, deciding whether an individually rational solution exists is intractable. To reach at least some tractability, one needs to combine multiple restrictions of the input instance, including the number of agents and the topology and the influence of distant agents on the utility.
ISSN:2331-8422