Self-interested Agents Can Bootstrap Symbolic Communication If They Punish Cheaters

We examine the social prerequisites for symbolic communication by studying a language game embedded within a signaling game, in which cooperation is possible but unenforced, and agents have incentive to deceive. Despite this incentive, and even with persistent cheating, naming conventions can still arise from strictly local interactions, as long as agents employ sufficient mechanisms to detect deceit. However, unfairly antagonistic strategies can undermine lexical convergence. Simulated agents are shown to evolve trust relations simultaneously with symbolic communication, suggesting that human language need not be predicated upon existing social relationships, although the cognitive capacity for social interaction seems essential. Thus, language can develop given a balance between restrained deception and revocable trust. Unconditional cooperation and outright altruism are not necessary.