AIs Role in Reducing Society's Selfishness

Researchers find AI agents that mimic human behavior can encourage cooperative dynamics

Published on Feb. 26, 2026

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Researchers at Michigan State University have found that introducing AI agents into a "Public Goods" game can help shift a selfish society towards more cooperative behavior. While simply injecting fully cooperative AI agents was not enough, AI agents that mimicked human behavior were able to lower the threshold for cooperation and produce larger pools of reciprocity, improving collective welfare.

Why it matters

The study explores the "tragedy of the commons" concept, examining how people respond to finite resources and the tendency for some to selfishly exploit resources to the detriment of the community. The researchers believe these findings could be applied to real-world scenarios, such as increasing cooperation in self-driving vehicles, to make small improvements in society.

The details

The researchers examined three scenarios in the "Public Goods" game: 1) AI agents were required to cooperate all the time, 2) players controlled the cooperation of the AI agents, and 3) AI agents mimicked human behavior. They found that the first scenario was insufficient to influence human behavior, while the second scenario actually made the situation worse as human players gamed the system. However, the final scenario, where AI agents mimicked human behavior, was able to lower the threshold to cooperation and produce larger pools of reciprocity, improving collective welfare.

  • The study was published on February 26, 2026.

The players

Christoph Adami

Professor at Michigan State University and senior author on the study.

Michigan State University

The university where the researchers conducted the study.

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What they’re saying

“Cooperation is everywhere in nature, but the mathematics of how cooperation can persist is not easy to understand.”

— Christoph Adami, Professor (npj Complexity)

“Being a good citizen is more costly than being a leech. We have studied this problem for more than 15 years to learn how to lower the barrier for cooperative behavior in order to convert a selfish society into a cooperative one.”

— Christoph Adami, Professor (npj Complexity)

“The idea of always being a good actor is not always a good strategy in society but being an actor that will stand firm against a bad actor may achieve a better outcome. Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery; it is also a form of communication that can provide the incentive to tip a population into cooperation.”

— Christoph Adami, Professor (npj Complexity)

What’s next

The researchers speculate that the findings from this study could be applied to make small improvements in society, such as increasing cooperation in self-driving vehicles.

The takeaway

This study suggests that introducing AI agents that mimic human behavior, rather than fully cooperative AI agents, can help shift a selfish society towards more cooperative dynamics and improved collective welfare. The researchers believe these findings could have real-world applications in areas like self-driving vehicle cooperation.