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Life as a Game: How AI and Game Theory Reveal the Rules We Didn’t Know We Were Playing
Life is messy. It’s beautiful, irrational, unpredictable — often unfair. Yet beneath the chaos, there’s a pattern. A framework. A silent game board on which we’re all players.
But what if the rules of this game weren’t made by us — or even for us? What if Artificial Intelligence is learning how to play better than we ever could?
Welcome to the intersection of Game Theory and AI, where strategy meets code, and the human condition is laid bare in mathematical clarity.
Let’s explore how these two forces help explain our lives, and possibly, reshape them.
Game Theory: The Math Behind Strategy
Game Theory is the study of strategic interaction — when your outcome depends not only on your decisions but also on the choices of others. It’s used in economics, psychology, politics, evolutionary biology, and even dating apps.
Some famous examples include:
- The Prisoner’s Dilemma — two individuals must choose to cooperate or betray, with their outcomes depending on what the other chooses.
- The Nash Equilibrium — a state where no player can gain by unilaterally changing their strategy.
- Zero-sum games — where one person’s gain is another’s loss.
- Repeated games — where players learn from the past and anticipate future moves.
Here is an interactive guide to the game theory of why & how we trust each other: The Evolution of Trust
In theory, if every player is rational and knows the rules, outcomes can be predicted.
But here’s the twist: humans are not always rational players.
The Irrational Human: Playing the Game on Hard Mode
Game theory assumes players act logically to maximize their payoff.
We don’t.
