Competing and surviving as a Human in the age of the AI

Part 1. Interacting with AI: It’s all about the might of the Reset button and the importance of leveling the playfield

My favorite childhood game was Monopoly. I still play it in an app, on my iPad, in a standalone mode, against the virtual, algorithm-based AI “opponents”. Gaming against a machine is a lost cause. AI studies my, and other Human players, behavior and playing style. If I find a way to win a round, the next round, the simplest AI adjusts and reacts differently. It knows my tricks and tactics, and always patches the loopholes that led me to a win, annihilating my future chances

The dices start to fall to machine’s advantage one time after another, but Eureka! There is a solution, if I shutdown the app, on a restart – it goes back one move, and allows me to re-roll the dices, giving me a second, third or n-time chance of hard resetting machine’s logic. Like flying back in time, and asking roulette dealer to spin again, until you get the number you like. It did work for some time, until the next version of the Monopoly app had fixed that “bug”. Now, no matter how many times I shutdown the app, it rolls the dices to get the same “random” number that makes me to lose

Revising the rules of the game is natural to a human kind. New laws, amendments, earmarks, taxes and tax cuts, benefits and restrictions, games and cheats. Our survivalist behavior is to outsmart others. We excelled at tricking and dominating other species and our own. Can we outsmart a higher intelligence?

Humans use ANY means to achieve their goals. Humans suck at calculating the importance and future outcomes of sub-goals, so our instincts, fear of losing, and inability to travel back in time, forcing us to continuously revise and impose our rules of the game

Part 2. Competing against other Humans

If resetting power or changing rules are what we do to dominate machines, what should we do to survive, compete and prosper among our kind? The probability of a lion cub being killed by an adult lion is higher than being shot by a human hunter. Before figuring out how to live with artificial or higher intelligence we need to figure out how to survive and live well among our species. Unfortunately for us, the stakes to stay alive are rising. It’s not anymore down to our physical strength, IQ or even wealth. We are at the mercy of other Humans or AI legacy rules defining our habitat, limiting our behavior, giving/restricting the access to knowledge and resources, and provisioning us with air, water and food

Why did Steve Ballmer (former head of Microsoft) buy LA Clippers basketball team, for his retirement years, instead of buying some computer gaming company, which would have been at least relevant to his entire life’s technical management expertise? Computer gaming company would be competing with products and services against other code-based products and services; thus, their competition will be against technology, not against other Humans. In a virtual basketball game anything is possible, but try to jump 10 feet high if you are a human. Limited abilities of humans allow other humans to compete with them, you can be smarter than a fifth grader in calculating your chess moves, but try to outplay a Deep Blue chess computer. Basically, we are vultures feasting on weaknesses of others

Billionaires buy sports team for the same reason high stakes poker players play against each other rather than trying to win against casino. It is an easy choice based on probability of winning. What are your chances to win against a casino, when playing by casino’s rules? You are playing against algorithms. But what are your chances against other human players, especially if you make others agree on your set of rules? There are always will be other human players who would do worse than you

The strategy to prosper is to play against other humans on your own rules. Additional leverage is to weaken or distract the opponent, set parties (competing with you) against each other, get some money leverage (ex: financing) they cannot get, or, in an absolutely worst-case scenario, set up a reason to exit from the game (say a fight at the table) then to switch to another table where you can start anew

Part 3. Human corrals

Basketball teams are small human enterprises. Think of them as a hired 5 players at a 6 persons poker table, where you also pay with your money their leveraged bets. Casino wins regardless. Those 5 players are like high paid actors, and you are the ultimate sucker. At least you had fun, did you?

Same participation logic, works in politics. You vote in a political theater, getting entertained by politicians, sole role of whose is to keep you engaged, to spend your time and money, and make you believe in a fairy tale spectacle they play, without 3 points shots or penalty throws

In the age of information technology and pandemics, the circus comes to your couch. It is safe to play, dial the number, mail-in the check, here is your coupon, fundraising link, instant loan, voting bulletin, lottery ticket, a chance to contribute to a world you know - from information fed into your brain. Those poor chicklets never seen sun, but they get plenty of UV from the lamp above, and they look healthy and happy

From AI perspective – Humans are biowaste. We are getting farmed and raised intellectually inept without the ability to use our natural talents in avoidance's sake of touching the chicken in the next cage. With atrophied brains, sterilized stomachs, weakened muscles and genetically modified blood cells and limbs, we cannot process or digest natural food, survive in the wild, and understand the raw information without it being pre-chewed for our tastes. We are bound and locked in a tiny corral of the metaverse with no way out