what is the likely outcome of a prisoner s dilemma 
the likely outcome for a prisoner s dilemma is that both players defect i e behave selfishly leading to suboptimal outcomes for both this is also the nash equilibrium a decision making theorem within game theory that states a player can achieve the desired outcome by not deviating from their initial strategy the nash equilibrium in this example is for both players to betray one other even though mutual cooperation leads to a better outcome for both players however if one prisoner chooses mutual cooperation and the other does not one prisoner s outcome is worse 3