I am working on a book that explains this and much more. It's a first-principles economic treatise called The Way of the World. Published by @KonsensusN later this year. Follow Konsensus and me for updates!

Why do we still play chess?♟️ Creativity and ownership in the age of AI. 🧵 In 1997, an IBM supercomputer beat the sport’s greatest mind. Deep Blue II became the first machine to defeat a chess world champion — Garry Kasparov. Humans would never win at chess again. But if computers have been better than us for so long, why do we still play chess? Don’t we always play to win? Well, even though we’re unlikely to record a victory over the machines, chess has become more popular than ever. According to a June 2023 PBS feature, subscriptions to chess clubs have soared and chess [dot] com servers have overloaded several times due to the highest number of active users ever. This is not just a fad based on The Queen’s Gambit (a 2020 Netflix adaptation). Over 100m people have registered on chess [dot] com since then, and books, YouTube channels and other content is flourishing. A Grandmaster recently visited the city in Spain where I live, and thousands of people came to watch her play. Here’s my theory behind the recent revival of chess. The answer to why we still play is what’s behind the game of chess: strategy and spatial recognition. It’s a system of training ourselves to appreciate cause and consequence, to improve our decision making. The best players train against computers, knowing they can’t win, but they can learn. The same is true with today’s writing landscape. Professionals are panicking that machines will produce most of the content we’ll read from now on. It's true that writing has changed. AI can write faster and more (grammatically) accurately than us. But what’s behind writing? 🧠 Patterns of structured thought 🗣️ Sound rhetoric 🖊️ The creativity of language 📚 The beauty of stories Writing is a skill that we still need to train. If we don’t, how will we know what makes our words effective or valuable? How will we communicate? How will we make sense of our past? We can use AI to help, but the words it processes belong to us. Just as we have recognised the importance of the concepts behind chess, we must do the same for the process of writing. #writing #ai #creativity

Why do we still play chess?♟️ Creativity and ownership in the age of AI. 🧵 In 1997, an IBM supercomputer beat the sport’s greatest mind. Deep Blue II became the first machine to defeat a chess world champion — Garry Kasparov. Humans would never win at chess again. But if computers have been better than us for so long, why do we still play chess? Don’t we always play to win? Well, even though we’re unlikely to record a victory over the machines, chess has become more popular than ever. According to a June 2023 PBS feature, subscriptions to chess clubs have soared and chess [dot] com servers have overloaded several times due to the highest number of active users ever. This is not just a fad based on The Queen’s Gambit (a 2020 Netflix adaptation). Over 100m people have registered on chess [dot] com since then, and books, YouTube channels and other content is flourishing. A Grandmaster recently visited the city in Spain where I live, and thousands of people came to watch her play. Here’s my theory behind the recent revival of chess. The answer to why we still play is what’s behind the game of chess: strategy and spatial recognition. It’s a system of training ourselves to appreciate cause and consequence, to improve our decision making. The best players train against computers, knowing they can’t win, but they can learn. The same is true with today’s writing landscape. Professionals are panicking that machines will produce most of the content we’ll read from now on. It's true that writing has changed. AI can write faster and more (grammatically) accurately than us. But what’s behind writing? 🧠 Patterns of structured thought 🗣️ Sound rhetoric 🖊️ The creativity of language 📚 The beauty of stories Writing is a skill that we still need to train. If we don’t, how will we know what makes our words effective or valuable? How will we communicate? How will we make sense of our past? We can use AI to help, but the words it processes belong to us. Just as we have recognised the importance of the concepts behind chess, we must do the same for the process of writing. #writing #ai #creativity

🐿️ Marmot Community Call 📅 TODAY, June 9, 16:00 UTC We’re back from Oslo! In today's call we'll walk through everything that shipped in May, talk with people building on Marmot, and anyone who wants to start. Ask us anything. Don’t miss it: meet.fulmo.org/marmot