Divide-and-Conquer Dynamics in AI-Driven Disempowerment

Kavli Affiliate: Max Tegmark

| First 5 Authors: Peter S. Park, Max Tegmark, , ,

| Summary:

AI companies are attempting to create AI systems that outperform humans at
most economically valuable work. Current AI models are already automating away
the livelihoods of some artists, actors, and writers. But there is infighting
between those who prioritize current harms and future harms. We construct a
game-theoretic model of conflict to study the causes and consequences of this
disunity. Our model also helps explain why throughout history, stakeholders
sharing a common threat have found it advantageous to unite against it, and why
the common threat has in turn found it advantageous to divide and conquer.
Under realistic parameter assumptions, our model makes several predictions
that find preliminary corroboration in the historical-empirical record. First,
current victims of AI-driven disempowerment need the future victims to realize
that their interests are also under serious and imminent threat, so that future
victims are incentivized to support current victims in solidarity. Second, the
movement against AI-driven disempowerment can become more united, and thereby
more likely to prevail, if members believe that their efforts will be
successful as opposed to futile. Finally, the movement can better unite and
prevail if its members are less myopic. Myopic members prioritize their future
well-being less than their present well-being, and are thus disinclined to
solidarily support current victims today at personal cost, even if this is
necessary to counter the shared threat of AI-driven disempowerment.

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