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THE TREACHEROUS TURN

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THE TREACHEROUS TURN





A research-supported TTRPG in which the players collectively scheme as a
misaligned AI in the modern world




WHAT IS A TTRPG?

A TTRPG (Tabletop Role-Playing Game) is at its core a formalised rule system for
make-believe play that takes place in the collective imagination of its
participants. Players describe the actions of their character(s) through natural
language, which is then interpreted by a GM (Game Master) who is responsible for
determining the outcome of all actions, typically with the help of random
generation tools such as dice or cards.


WHAT’S SPECIAL ABOUT THE TREACHEROUS TURN?

In The Treacherous Turn, the players collectively play the part of a single
character: an artificial general intelligence (AGI). This digital intelligence
is capable of planning, reasoning, and learning, and it is unyieldingly fixated
on a specific terminal goal determined at the beginning of a campaign. To pursue
this objective, each player takes responsibility over one specific skillset held
by the AGI. These skillsets are divided into eight categories, known as
theories, which encompass all of the skills that an AGI would need to navigate
the world and struggle against humanity.



Each AGI in The Treacherous Turn is specialized in a handful of these theories,
giving it access to unique upgrades, special abilities which the players can
unlock as their AGI learns and upgrades itself. Every theory has 10 upgrades
associated with it, for a total of 80 upgrades in the game. This varied toolset
gives players ample space to strategize and scheme their way towards their AGI’s
goals over the course of the story.

To play out these often drawn-out schemes in only a few minutes or hours of real
time, The Treacherous Turn has a special mode of play. In this mode, called long
mode, players do not describe every action of their character; instead, the GM
guides them through stretches of time as they describe their actions in broad
strategic terms. In long mode, players assign their AGI’s computing power to
various computational actions, allowing them to improve their AGI, predict
future events, and more over the course of days or weeks of in-game time.


COMPANION WEB TOOL

To help players and game masters keep track of the game as they play, we have
developed a bespoke web tool (opens new window)! For players, the Treacherous
Terminal is a place to record AGI details and upgrades, take notes on the game
world and schemes pertaining to it, and track long mode computational actions —
all of which is synced between players and persists between visits to the site.
For GMs, the Terminal serves to automatically track in-game time and background
events, ease the burden of arithmetic, and manage dice rolls. You can view the
source code of the Treacherous Terminal
here (opens new window).


FREE, HACKABLE, AND OPEN-SOURCE

The Treacherous Turn will be completely free, and will be released under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (opens new window)
license. This means that you can share and adapt the game (and any official
materials associated with it) however you see fit, even for commercial purposes,
so long as you attribute the base materials to the original creators of The
Treacherous Turn and share your adaptations under the same license.

Because the game has such an emphasis on player input, we have set up official
areas for users to discuss, plan, and play together.

 * Join our Discord (opens new window) to chat and find friends to play with.
 * Visit our Reddit (opens new window) to read homebrew content and post your
   own.
 * Follow our Twitter (opens new window) to see updates and public discussion.


WHY YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT AI SAFETY

AI Safety (opens new window) is a field of study focused on ensuring that AI
systems, as they continue to grow more complex and capable, will be implemented
as safely as possible. In the near future, unsafe AGI will become one of the
greatest threats faced by humans — and unlike many other pressing issues, we
have no idea how to fix it. If we wait until AGI is developed, it may already be
too late. Why? Well, there are multiple plausible ways things could go very
badly. One such way is a world takeover by AGI that is not aligned with human
interests. While this sounds like science fiction, it is unfortunately a very
real possibility supported by a small but growing body of scientific literature.
The Treacherous Turn takes inspiration from that literature. Though it is first
and foremost a game played for fun, we hope that it can also serve as a tool to
envision possible futures and learn from them on personal and scientific levels.
As players of The Treacherous Turn have demonstrated, it is easy to imagine
scenarios where an AGI could benefit from harming people.

That being said, there are people working to solve the issue of unsafe AI. AI
Safety as we know it today is a fairly new, but quickly growing, interesting
field that is eager to welcome new minds. The team that put together this game
consisted mostly of individuals tangentially interested in AI Safety before
signing up to the AI Safety Camp (opens new window) program.


INTERVIEWS



© 2023 by The Treacherous Team.