I will speak to the question of “what are some situations in real life, other than “AI takeoff”, where the early/mid/late game metaphor seems useful?”. It seems to me that such a metaphor is useful in any situation with
—two or more competitors,
—who start small and expand,
—in a fixed-size field of contention,
—and such that bigger competitors tend to beat small ones.
The phases in such a competition can be described as
—Early: competitors are building up power and resources more or less independently, because they’re not big enough to run into each other significantly. Important to strategize correctly. You can plan longer term because other players can’t upset your plans yet.
—Mid: what other players do matters very much to what you do. Maximum coupling leads to maximum confusion.
—End: time for the leading player to grind down the smaller players. Becomes easier to understand as hope disappears.
Chess is an example, where there are two competitors, and the resource is “pieces that have been moved and not yet taken”. This also applies to multiplayer tabletop games (which is where I thought of it). It also applies to companies moving into a new product area, like desktop operating systems in the ’80s. It applied to European colonial powers moving into new continents.
I will speak to the question of “what are some situations in real life, other than “AI takeoff”, where the early/mid/late game metaphor seems useful?”. It seems to me that such a metaphor is useful in any situation with
—two or more competitors,
—who start small and expand,
—in a fixed-size field of contention,
—and such that bigger competitors tend to beat small ones.
The phases in such a competition can be described as
—Early: competitors are building up power and resources more or less independently, because they’re not big enough to run into each other significantly. Important to strategize correctly. You can plan longer term because other players can’t upset your plans yet.
—Mid: what other players do matters very much to what you do. Maximum coupling leads to maximum confusion.
—End: time for the leading player to grind down the smaller players. Becomes easier to understand as hope disappears.
Chess is an example, where there are two competitors, and the resource is “pieces that have been moved and not yet taken”. This also applies to multiplayer tabletop games (which is where I thought of it). It also applies to companies moving into a new product area, like desktop operating systems in the ’80s. It applied to European colonial powers moving into new continents.