It’s interesting to me just how many people in the AI research/safety crowd still think AI is worse at writing than the best humans. I think it’s true, but it’s an interesting contrast to the AI bros on Twitter who are like “I just made this in 10 minutes with [TOOL]. [INDUSTRY] is dead.”
I just attended a practice run of D. Scott Phoenix’s “The Endgame” milsim/wargame/LARP event in Berkeley, CA. It was interesting. If you take our simulation tonight as gospel, xAI is going to win the AI compute/fab race IFF China blockades Taiwan.
~40 people split into teams representing different actors in the current AI space (Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, but also Venture Capital, the US, China, and The Public, etc.) and engaged with each other over rounds, brokering deals with each other and taking actions to see what happens in a simulation of the near future.
China and the US went to a hybrid war, the US nationalised AI labs and American silicon fabs, Anthropic and Deepmind merged, xAI become the foremost silicon provider in the country, and some other stuff happened.
Oh yeah, and Claude GigaMythos leaked, political travel plans went public, and a few US politicians got assassinated. But in the end, the US and Chinese governments and their over-reliance on AI for governance and policy led to an AI-enforced world peace!
It was a cool experience, if a little flawed. So much potential. Unfortunately it seems like Scott is going to present this game this week at a conference and then never run it again.
I think if you gave me 14 days and a few playtests I could design a far better version of this game that flowed better, was more engaging, and achieved the goal better (helping powerful people in AI model what the future might look like based on incentives). I understand the need to keep the game tight and lightweight, but the game really needs better modelling for mass media, social media, relationships, resources, and “what can I do on a given turn?”. There are also some changes I would make to the structure and the factions available.
(I’m not critiquing out of disrespect. It was just my hope that Scott might hire me to work on and improve his game. Alas, it looks like The Endgame concludes in the next few days.)
I might write a LW effortpost about this actually. I love game design and I would one day like someone to pay me to design games/run events for them. I am particularly inspired by other simulation games like the UK based Megagame Makers who have been doing this kind of thing for years.
It’s interesting to me just how many people in the AI research/safety crowd still think AI is worse at writing than the best humans. I think it’s true, but it’s an interesting contrast to the AI bros on Twitter who are like “I just made this in 10 minutes with [TOOL]. [INDUSTRY] is dead.”
I just attended a practice run of D. Scott Phoenix’s “The Endgame” milsim/wargame/LARP event in Berkeley, CA. It was interesting. If you take our simulation tonight as gospel, xAI is going to win the AI compute/fab race IFF China blockades Taiwan.
~40 people split into teams representing different actors in the current AI space (Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, but also Venture Capital, the US, China, and The Public, etc.) and engaged with each other over rounds, brokering deals with each other and taking actions to see what happens in a simulation of the near future.
China and the US went to a hybrid war, the US nationalised AI labs and American silicon fabs, Anthropic and Deepmind merged, xAI become the foremost silicon provider in the country, and some other stuff happened.
Oh yeah, and Claude GigaMythos leaked, political travel plans went public, and a few US politicians got assassinated. But in the end, the US and Chinese governments and their over-reliance on AI for governance and policy led to an AI-enforced world peace!
It was a cool experience, if a little flawed. So much potential. Unfortunately it seems like Scott is going to present this game this week at a conference and then never run it again.
I think if you gave me 14 days and a few playtests I could design a far better version of this game that flowed better, was more engaging, and achieved the goal better (helping powerful people in AI model what the future might look like based on incentives). I understand the need to keep the game tight and lightweight, but the game really needs better modelling for mass media, social media, relationships, resources, and “what can I do on a given turn?”. There are also some changes I would make to the structure and the factions available.
(I’m not critiquing out of disrespect. It was just my hope that Scott might hire me to work on and improve his game. Alas, it looks like The Endgame concludes in the next few days.)
I might write a LW effortpost about this actually. I love game design and I would one day like someone to pay me to design games/run events for them. I am particularly inspired by other simulation games like the UK based Megagame Makers who have been doing this kind of thing for years.
Thank you Scott for the invite! :D