Definition
Plain language
A situation where each option gets worse the more people pick it, like roads at rush hour.
As stated in the literature
Game in which each player's payoff depends only on the number of players choosing the same resource; costs increase with load, and equal splitting often minimizes average cost.
Also called: congestion games
Why it matters: It is the simplest setting where the smart move depends entirely on what everyone else does, so it exposes whether a group of AI agents can spread out instead of all piling onto the same option.
For example, if three food trucks park on the same corner they all sell less, but spread across three corners each one does fine.
Heard on the show
“This is called a congestion game: an option gets worse as more people choose it.”Episode 282 — Fifty AI Agents Got One Warning and All Crowded the Same Road