Gaming the Future: Technologies for Intelligent Voluntary Cooperation

The Book

Welcome to this living book and book club about technologies for intelligent voluntary cooperation by Allison Duettmann, Mark S. Miller, and Christine Peterson, Foresight Institute.

Gaming the Future: Technologies for Intelligent Voluntary Cooperation

Have you ever played Civilization? In the game, you’re discovering technologies that unlock new levels, one capability at a time. But not all innovations are equal. Better technologies of cooperation could unlock new levels of progress across the board. Opportunities for bright futures enabled by bio, nano, and computing technologies are now within our reach. Their proliferation also comes with risks and authoritarian attempts at control. This book explores how technologies of intelligent voluntary cooperation can help us navigate the traps. Cryptocommerce enables decentralized, secure cooperation across human and computing entities. This unlocks a Paretotropian future of high technology and high freedom. 

Short-cuts to the chapters in this book:

1. FOREWORD | What's at Stake in This Game?

2. OVERVIEW | What to Expect From This Game

3. MEET THE PLAYERS | Value Diversity

4. SKIM THE MANUAL | Intelligent Voluntary Cooperation

5. IMPROVE COOPERATION | New Info, Money, Rights, Contracts, Privacy

6. GENETIC TAKEOVER | Cryptocommerce

7. DEFEND AGAINST PHYSICAL THREATS | Multipolar Active Shields

8. DEFEND AGAINST CYBER THREATS | Computer Security

9. WELCOME NEW PLAYERS | Artificial Intelligences

10. ITERATE THE GAME | Racing Where?

We hope you find interest in critiquing and augmenting the ideas by commenting. This book, like a good game, is here to be iterated and improved for the next round.

The Book Club

As a free subscriber, you’ll receive a free digital book. We look forward to your comments to breath life into it, e.g. via our Gitcoin bounties!

As a paid subscriber, you receive invitations to the book club, running weekly throughout May and June on Sundays, 11 am - 1 pm PT.

In the book club, you’ll discuss chapter by chapter live with the authors and other like minds, meet some of the keynote presenters whose seminars are featured in the sections, and cooperate on turning these technologies into action.

As a founding member, you’ll receive a special edition physical version of the book, in addition to book club membership.

Sunday, May 1: Christine Peterson, Foresight Institute, Mark S. Miller, Agoric Allison Duettmann, Foresight Institute

Sunday, May 8: Robin Hanson, George Mason University

Saturday, May 14: David Friedman, Author of Legal Systems Very Different from Ours

Sunday, May 22: Kate Sills, Paul Gebheim, Forecast Foundation

Sunday, May 29: Primavera De Filippi, Koala, Arthur Breitman, Tezos

Sunday, June 5: David Brin, Author of Transparent Society

Sunday, June 12: Gernot Heiser, SeL4

Sunday, June 19: Trent McConaghy, Ocean Protocol

Sunday, June 26: Stuart Armstrong, Future of Humanity Institute

Founding members will receive a special edition physical version of the book, in addition to book club membership.

We look forward to being in touch in the coming weeks, and to hosting a lively exchange with our readers and the community!

Subscribe to Book Club

Thank you!

We would like to thank members of our Foresight’s Intelligent Cooperation Group for shaping this book into what it is through our 2021 seminars:

• Robin Hanson, George Mason University | Value Drift

• Balaji S. Srinivasan | The Network State

• Dr. Vernon Smith | Theory of Price Discovery in Markets

• A. McAfee | Civilizational Progress

• Tyler Cowen, George Mason University | Stubborn Attachments

• Audrey Tang, Taiwan Digital Minister: Tools for Openness

• Prediction & Replication Markets, Augur, Metaculus

• Christine Lemmer-Webber | Randy Farmer | Re-Decentralizing Networked Communities

• Kate Sills, Agoric | NFTs and Engineering Property Rights
  Arthur Breitman, Tezos: Blockchain Governance

• Marc Stiegler, Agoric | The Digital Path

• Chip Morningstar, Meng Weng, Federico Ast | Split Contracts, Comp. Law & Decentralized Arbitration

• DAOstack, Decentraland, SifChain, ResearchHub, VitaDAO | DAOs

• Glen Weyl, RadicalxChange | Social Technology for a Political Economy of Increasing Returns

• Alex Tabarrok, George Mason University | Dominant Assurance Contracts

• Zooko Wilcox, ECC, Howard Wu, Aleo | Zero-knowledge-enabled Cooperation

• Jim Epstein, Primavera De Filippi, Brewster Kahle | Peaceful Transition into Cryptocommerce?

• Daniel Ellsberg, DoomsDay Machine | Nuclear Risks: Doomsday (Still) Hiding in Plain Sight

• David Brin, The Transparent Society | Transparent Society & Sousveillance

• Gernot Heiser | SeL4: Formal Proofs for Real-World Cybersecurity

• David Krakauer, Santa Fe Institute | Collective Computing

• Gillian Hadfield, University of Toronto | Incomplete Contracts & AI Alignment

• Richard Craib, NumerAI | Techniques for Intelligence Coordination
  Peter Norvig, Google | AI: A Modern Approach

• Anders Sandberg, Oxford University | Game Theory of Cooperating with Alien Minds

• Robin Hanson, George Mason University | A Simple Model of Grabby Aliens

The seminars are now incorporated into the text as deep dives.

We would especially like to thank Keith Mansfield, Tom Galloway, Terry Stanley, Chris Hibbert, Alan Karp, Jazear Brooks, David Manheim, Kate Sills, Chip Morningstar, Gillian Hadfield, Robin Hanson, David Friedman, Jim Bennett, Micah Zoltu, and Dan Field for extensive comments on the book draft. We learned a lot and all remaining errors are ours.

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