“don’t hate the players, change the game” – The dark side of competition in AI

Competition. It’s a fundamental part of human nature. […] When it’s done right, it can drive us to incredible feats in sports and innovation, […] healthy competition, because even though individual companies might come and go, in the long run, the game between them creates win-win outcomes where everyone benefits in the end. But sometimes competition is not so great and can create lose-lose outcomes where everyone’s worse off than before. […]

Poker champion and science communicator Liv Boeree introduces us to “Moloch’s trap” — the dark force of game theory driving many of humanity’s biggest social problems, which is now threatening to derail the AI industry.

You need to figure out all the reasons people in your group aren’t thinking and eliminate them – the reasons,   not the people

—  Jim McCarthy

So what can we do? Well, the good news is we have managed to coordinate to escape some of Moloch’s traps before. […] So smart regulation may certainly help with AI too, but ultimately, it’s the players within the game who have the most influence on it. So we need AI leaders to show us that they’re not only aware of the risks their technologies pose, but also the destructive nature of the incentives that they’re currently beholden to.
As their technological capabilities reach towards the power of gods, they’re going to need the godlike wisdom to know how to wield them. […]
We need leaders who are willing to flip Moloch’s playbook, who are willing to sacrifice their own individual chance of winning for the good of the whole.

Competition can be an amazing tool, provided we wield it wisely. And we’re going to need to do that because the stakes we are playing for are astronomical. If we get AI, … wrong, it could lead to unimaginable catastrophe.
But if we get it right, it could be our path out of many of these Moloch traps. And as things get crazier […], it’s going to be more important than ever that we remember that it is the real enemy here, Moloch.
Not any individual CEO or company, and certainly not one another.

So don’t hate the players, change the game.