# Diffusion of Responsibility in Collective Decision Making

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.07935 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.07935/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 2 of its 22 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 9 Jun 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [A Game-Theoretic Account of Responsibility Allocation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.09129/) (2021)
- [Blameworthiness in Strategic Games](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.05485/) (2018)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The term "diffusion of responsibility'' refers to situations in which multiple agents share responsibility for an outcome, obscuring individual accountability. This paper examines this frequently undesirable phenomenon in the context of collective decision-making mechanisms. The work shows that if a decision is made by two agents, then the only way to avoid diffusion of responsibility is for one agent to act as a "dictator'', making the decision unilaterally. In scenarios with more than two agents, any diffusion-free mechanism is an "elected dictatorship'' where the agents elect a single agent to make a unilateral decision. The technical results are obtained by defining a bisimulation of decision-making mechanisms, proving that bisimulation preserves responsibility-related properties, and establishing the results for a smallest bisimular mechanism.