I think the law of comparative advantage keeps being true even if the other agent is better at all the things than you are (imagine if I can gather one coconut a day or two gallons of water a day, and you can gather ten coconuts a day or five gallons of water a day; I think it’s still worth trading my water for your coconuts?) but stops being true if they’re better at all the things and they can freely copy themselves. So yes, in a full AGI foom, humans are kind of useless. From the perspective of trying to make fun games, any exchange rate offered between other resources and extra turns needs to be very finely calculated and I have never managed to tune that in a way that was fun for everyone.
Testing new economic reforms and studying what happens with AGI seems quite in scope for cohabitive games, including the part where sometimes the stable balance point is with some players getting pushed off the board entirely. I’ve found playing around in this space to be a good intuition pump for how pushing players off the board isn’t necessarily the result of malicious intent or a goal to destroy others, but instead an instrumental preference for wanting the resources they’re using. For my own designs, one of the things I want is a way to play around with and internalize how complex economies and supply chains work faster than spending ten years working in the manufacturing and logistics field.
I think understanding economics and industrial growth often fails in competitive and cooperative games, or worse, works but gives a needlessly competitive or cooperative view towards economies. It’s very relevant to how I negotiate with my boss at a 9-5 standard job that I’m not trying to win by having more money at the end of ten turns, and also that me and the boss don’t collectively win by adding our incomes together at the end of the game. That kind of negotiation, where it’s positive sum but both of us want to capture as much of the gains as we can, seems pretty niche in non-cohabitive games.
I’ve mostly tried to avoid having (fake) money as a unit-of-account or medium-of-exchange, mostly because its lack seems to get people thinking about the use of resources like coconuts or water. Once trading is happening, the usefulness of a medium-of-exchange and the limitations imposed by barter seem to become obvious to me, but nobody I’ve played with spontaneously pointed out a medium-of-exchange would be useful here. (The usefulness I keep seeing is facilitating four way trades with at least four other resources, e.g. coconuts for water for wood planks for cloth.)
I think the law of comparative advantage keeps being true even if the other agent is better at all the things than you are
Probably, the part that stops being true is the assumption of non-aggression. With humans, damaging a human or even their culture or ego will generally make them far less valuable as a trading partner. But as soon as there are ways for one agent to use the materials of a human to make something more valuable, expect more aggression.
I think the law of comparative advantage keeps being true even if the other agent is better at all the things than you are (imagine if I can gather one coconut a day or two gallons of water a day, and you can gather ten coconuts a day or five gallons of water a day; I think it’s still worth trading my water for your coconuts?) but stops being true if they’re better at all the things and they can freely copy themselves. So yes, in a full AGI foom, humans are kind of useless. From the perspective of trying to make fun games, any exchange rate offered between other resources and extra turns needs to be very finely calculated and I have never managed to tune that in a way that was fun for everyone.
Testing new economic reforms and studying what happens with AGI seems quite in scope for cohabitive games, including the part where sometimes the stable balance point is with some players getting pushed off the board entirely. I’ve found playing around in this space to be a good intuition pump for how pushing players off the board isn’t necessarily the result of malicious intent or a goal to destroy others, but instead an instrumental preference for wanting the resources they’re using. For my own designs, one of the things I want is a way to play around with and internalize how complex economies and supply chains work faster than spending ten years working in the manufacturing and logistics field.
I think understanding economics and industrial growth often fails in competitive and cooperative games, or worse, works but gives a needlessly competitive or cooperative view towards economies. It’s very relevant to how I negotiate with my boss at a 9-5 standard job that I’m not trying to win by having more money at the end of ten turns, and also that me and the boss don’t collectively win by adding our incomes together at the end of the game. That kind of negotiation, where it’s positive sum but both of us want to capture as much of the gains as we can, seems pretty niche in non-cohabitive games.
I’ve mostly tried to avoid having (fake) money as a unit-of-account or medium-of-exchange, mostly because its lack seems to get people thinking about the use of resources like coconuts or water. Once trading is happening, the usefulness of a medium-of-exchange and the limitations imposed by barter seem to become obvious to me, but nobody I’ve played with spontaneously pointed out a medium-of-exchange would be useful here. (The usefulness I keep seeing is facilitating four way trades with at least four other resources, e.g. coconuts for water for wood planks for cloth.)
Probably, the part that stops being true is the assumption of non-aggression. With humans, damaging a human or even their culture or ego will generally make them far less valuable as a trading partner. But as soon as there are ways for one agent to use the materials of a human to make something more valuable, expect more aggression.