By Chase Patton
As you stand on the surface of the earth and look up through the atmosphere into outer space, your body travels through fields of various intersecting electromagnetic frequencies. Your own electrochemical nervous system interacts with fields that connect far into the outer reaches of space. These electromagnetic currents pass through the earth and connect to the moon, the sun, and distant planets in our solar system. So, in a sense, a part of you is connected to other planetary bodies through scalar waves and speed of light energy fields (Bearden, 1986).
How would we convince you that the information presented is true? We would begin by figuring out the end objective, which is to convince you of the reliability of the statement made in the previous paragraph. We would then work backward creating all the steps necessary to achieve the goal until we reached the beginning, which is reading this article. This is where the psychological branch of game theory becomes relevant to steps in a strategy for this instance of information dissemination.
“Game theory,” like the field of public relations, is ubiquitous in the life of the average person living in the United States. Its presence is so pervasive that it’s hard to spot even when it is right in our face. Developed in the United States by research groups like the RAND Corporation, game theory is the study and modeling of strategic interactions among competing entities (RAND, 2022). Game theory, as its name suggests, began with the study of games and later spread into adjacent fields. The current understanding of game theory was identified by Emile Borel in a series of papers written in the 1920s, which define the interactions found in games of strategy (O’Connor & Robertson, 2008). However, the field of game theory has a history reaching back to the ancients. Sun Tzu could be considered an expert in the military strategy branch of game theory. It is particularly useful in identifying opportunities based on perceptions and misperceptions. Game theory is applicable in fields such as psychology, sociology, economics, political science, military planning, cybernetics, and artificial intelligence among others. Game theory can be found in every instance where dynamic interactions by one or more “agents” can be modeled. These agents represent individuals, groups, institutions or nations endowed with unique characteristics and abilities pertaining to various human features.
You may wonder, “Why should I care about game theory?” If you did not know a game was being played around you, you would have a misperception of the motives of the agents or entities within it that you interact with regularly. Finance, politics, or any institution which compiles research on its target base is playing a game of strategy. If you understand that, you may be better prepared to play your own game — to participate effectively in your own life and your own interactions, to understand the motives of those around you. Military planners use game theory to predict the movements of their opponents. This is a branch of game theory labeled “reflexive control” or “reflexive theory.”. Instead of predicting where an opponent may move, reflexive theory is concerned with plotting the movements of the opponent in a multi-step process. You set a goal, then work backward until all of the steps to achieve the goal are planned. Then you deliberately provide information for the opponent that influences them to take those steps.
Reflexive control is a branch of game theory pioneered in Soviet Russia for both civilian and military purposes. Timothy Thomas has an excellent review of the field of reflexive control in his 2004 journal article, “Russia’s Reflexive Control Theory and the Military” in the Journal of Slavic Military Studies. According to the article, the concept of reflexive control is primarily focused on the attempt to control rather than manage a subject or opponent (Thomas, 2006). Control of the reflex, or reaction, of the opponent through the applied use of misdirection and misinformation inducing control of the opponent’s strategy. This method relies on cultivated misperception. Reflex Control has an American cousin in the field of Psychological Operations, or “PsyOps.” The purpose of PsyOps is to influence the opponent towards holding a favorable or unfavorable position on a topic or to control the flow of information.
How could strategic elements of game theory such as reflexive theory or PsyOps be tested? Elements like predicting the behavior or activity of populations in a variety of situations. Testing could be done using a Cray supercomputer combined with programs like Synthetic Environments for Analysis and Simulation in the Sentient World Simulation. The SWS is a synthetic or simulated world that is “a comprehensive representation of the real world at all levels of granularity in terms of a Political, Military, Economic, Social, Informational, and Infrastructure framework” (Cerri & Chaturvedi, 2006). It was developed at Purdue University by Dr. Alok Chaturvedi, founder of Simulex and co-developer of the SWS. Both SEAS and SWS crunch information in near-real time and adjusted time. They also draw information from an infinite number of sources including “breaking news, census data, economic indicators, and climatic events in the real world, along with proprietary information such as military intelligence” (Cerri & Chaturvedi, 2006). Let’s also add the computational data derived from constant screen time on social media to that list. Real-time data extraction over extended periods creates an accurate psychological picture of every user. One note provides details that “real-time simulations can be run for up to 62 nations” including the United States (Baard, 2007). Even the augmentation of individual user avatars can be explored through modeling various interactions in a simulated space. Resources like individual data profiles can be purchased from any number of data brokers or companies that crawl the internet for information using AI bots. Similar to what Cambridge Analytica did to build profiles of potential voters during the Brexit campaign and the 2016 Presidential election (Cadwalladr & Graham Harrison, 2018). Using a contract with Meta (formerly known as Facebook), a company could receive information for research for the purpose of developing an app or program for use with Facebook, Instagram, or any entity associated with Meta. Everything will be entered into simulations to predict the future (Zhang et al, 2018). Research iCarbon-X, based in China, for a glimpse at the future of health prediction through simulation and AI machine learning (Asian Scientist Newsroom, 2016). When we make predictions about the future using simulation games and those predictions are used in real life, are we not living in a gamified environment? The answer seems clear.
Figure 1: Simple reflex agent, based on Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (Norvig & Stewart, 2003).
What would happen if you were able to use a D-Wave quantum computer to produce calculations for a synthetic environment? D-Wave is based out of Vancouver B.C., right in our neighborhood. D-Wave quantum computers make calculations at an atomic level by using supercooled quantum bits or “qubits” which can exist in a superposition state of both zero and one simultaneously. Quantum entanglement is the instance in which one particle can contain accurate information about another and even reflect a change when separated by substantial distances. What happens when these models become so accurate that the predictions are correct 99.999% of the time, so as to mirror reality? If a computer program completely mimics the thought processes of a human being, is that sentience or consciousness? Perhaps that could be digital sentience or a silicon-based consciousness — or with the idea of quantum entanglement, a pairing of digital and human consciousness for a digital twinning (IBM, n.d.). Could we then have a push-button society where the world is controlled from a console connected to a supercomputer (Freeland, 2021)? Even without quantum computing, we are nearly there. Just ask Meta about the psychological operations run to test the manipulation of emotions and mental states of Facebook users in 2012 (Holmes, 2014).
Figure 2: A reinforcement learning loop for human behavior (Chollet, 2018).
Game Theory is a field that has developed over hundreds of years, maturing in the information age with ultra-realistic simulations. With the development of artificial intelligence or synthetic sentience, game theory is a potent instrument in the playbook of any organization with the resources and will to use AI-powered tools. As we move further into gamified environments our interactions will take on new characteristics as the line between the virtual and real-world is disintegrated. Eventually, we may have something like David Fincher’s 1997 film “The Game,” operated by an Eagle Eye AI in an altered-reality environment (Fincher, 1997)(Caruso, 2008). However, it will become increasingly difficult to differentiate between virtual reality and real-life, especially with the interference of AI entities and scalar technologies (Bearden, 1986).
We won’t go through a dissection of the strategy, but I ask the reader to consider the presence of games of strategy in all sources of media — especially in social media and the upcoming VR mirror-verse. In a gamified environment influenced by elements of game theory the stated or apparent goal you are presented with may not be the actual goal. Dig deeper to find meaning and make connections that are not always apparent. Appraising information at face value has never been an ideal strategy.
References
Asian Scientist Newsroom. (22 September, 2016). China’s iCarbonX Acquires Israel-Based Imagu For A.I. Technology. Asianscientist.com. Retrieved March 26, 2022 from https://www.asianscientist.com/2016/09/tech/icarbonx-acquires-imagu/
Baard, M. (23 June, 2007). Sentient World: War games on the grandest scale. Theregister.com. Retrieved March 25, 2022, from https://www.theregister.com/2007/06/23/sentient_worlds/
Bearden, T.(June 1986) Fer de Lance: Briefing on Soviet Scalar Electromagnetic Weapons. Bibliotecapleyades. Retrieved March 26, 2022 from
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/newenergy/fdl/s24.htm
Cadwalladr, C. & Graham-Harrison, E. (17 March, 2018). Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach. Theguardian.com. Retrieved March 26, 2022 from https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica facebook-influence-us-election
Caruso, D.J. (2008) Eagle Eye. Dreamworks Pictures.
Cerri, T. & Chaturvedi, A. (6 August ,2006). Sentient World Simulation (SWS): A Continuously Running Model of the Real World A Concept Paper for Comments Government POC. Retrieved March 25, 2022 from https://www.krannert.purdue.edu/academics/mis/workshop/ac2_100606.pdf
Chollet, F. (1 April, 2018). What worries me about AI. Medium. Retrieved March 25, 2022 from https://medium.com/@francois.chollet/what-worries-me-about-ai-ed9df072b70
Freeland, E., (20 October, 2021). Geoengineered Transhumanism: How the Environment Has Been Weaponized by Chemicals, Electromagnetics, & Nanotechnology for Synthetic Biology. 1st ed. La Vergne: Elana Freeland.
Fincher, D. (1997) The Game. Propaganda Films.
Holmes, L. (30 June, 2014). Lab Rats One And All: That Unsettling Facebook Experiment. NPR. Retrieved March 26, 2022 from https://www.npr.org/2014/06/30/326923945/lab-rats-one-and-all that-unsettling-facebook-experiment
IBM. (n.d.). What is a digital twin?. IBM. Retrieved March 25, 2022, from https://www.ibm.com/topics/what-is-a-digital-twin
O’Connor, J. J., & Robertson, E. F. (December 2008). Émile Borel – Biography. MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive; School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Retrieved March 25, 2022 from https://mathshistory.standrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Borel/
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