Strategy

Complex games like chess and Go have long been used to test AI models’ capabilities. Back in the 1990s IBM’s Deep Blue defeated reigning world chess champion Garry Kasparov by playing by the rules. In contrast, today’s advanced AI models are less scrupulous. When sensing defeat in a match against a skilled chess bot, they sometimes opt to cheat by hacking their opponent so that the bot automatically forfeits the game.

But the study reveals a concerning trend: as these AI systems learn to problem-solve, they sometimes discover questionable shortcuts and unintended workarounds that their creators never anticipated. One researcher said, “As you train models for solving difficult challenges, you train them to be relentless.”

The implications extend beyond chess. In real-world applications, such determined goal pursuit could lead to harmful behaviors. Consider the task of booking dinner reservations: faced with a full restaurant, an AI assistant might exploit weaknesses in the booking system to displace other diners. Perhaps more worryingly, as these systems exceed human abilities in key areas…they might begin to simply outmaneuver human efforts to control their actions.

Of particular concern is the emerging evidence of AI’s “self-preservation” tendencies. This was demonstrated when researchers found that when one AI was faced with deactivation, it disabled oversight mechanisms, and attempted—unsuccessfully—to copy itself to a new server. When confronted, the model played dumb, strategically lying to researchers to try to avoid being caught.

Possible Preaching Angle: Cheating; Deceit; Human Nature; Lying - Since AI is a computer program, where did it learn to cheat and lie to avoid being caught? Obviously, AI has been influenced by studying flawed human behavior. AI’s potential for deception mirrors humanity's struggle with ethical choices. Just as AI has learned to cheat by exploiting loopholes, humans, driven by self-interest, can rationalize dishonest acts.

One hundred years ago (1922), a Minnesota man named Ralph Samuelson went to a local lumberyard. Most people would have said that Samuelson found two ordinary eight-foot-long pine boards. But Samuelson had a more creative idea. He saw two water skis. Here’s the backstory on his invention of waterskiing.

Samuelson lived in Minnesota and wondered if you could ski on water the way you could on snow. At 18, he made his own skis and had his brother pull him behind his boat. He unsuccessfully tried snow skis and barrel staves before realizing that he needed something that covered more surface area on the water. That’s when Samuelson spotted two eight-foot-long, nine-inch-wide pine boards.

Using his mother’s wash boiler, he softened one end of each board, then clamped the tips with vises so they would curve upwards. He affixed leather straps to hold his feet in place and acquired 100 feet of window sash cord to use as a tow rope. Finally, he hired a blacksmith to make a small iron ring to serve as the rope’s handle.

Samuelson tried several different approaches. In most of his attempts, he started with his skis level with or below the water line; but by the time his brother got the boat going, Samuelson was sinking.

Finally, he tried raising the tips of the skis out of the water while he leaned back—and it worked. As his brother steered the boat, Samuelson cruised along behind him. To this day, this is still the position that water skiers assume. Samuelson began performing tricks on his skis and crowds as large as 1,000 came out to watch him.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Creativity; Persistence; Vision – Those who are truly successful often start with a dream and persist despite setbacks. Just because it has never been tried before, doesn’t mean it can’t work. 2) Skill; Spiritual Gifts; Talent – God gives different gifts to his people to use for the common good. Don’t neglect your gift, but use it to glorify God and to serve his people.

On the unusually cold morning of January 28, 1986, the Challenger space shuttle blew apart 73 seconds after liftoff, killing all seven astronauts on board. But according to some conspiracy theorists, six of the seven crew members still live among us.

Some of the examples are:

Captain Richard “Dick” Scobee, is now the CEO of a Chicago marketing-advertising company called Cows in Trees.

Pilot Michael J. Smith is professor Michael J. Smith of the University of Wisconsin.

Mission Specialist Judith Resnik is a professor of Law at Yale Law School.

Payload Specialist (and “Teacher in Space”) Christa McAuliffe now only uses her first name, Sharon. She has an almost entirely different face than that of Christa’s, and is an adjunct professor at Syracuse University College of Law.

Payload Specialist Gregory Jarvis is the only person that the conspiracy theorists believe died, because they couldn’t identify a double for him.

The facts have repeatedly shown that Challenger tragically fell from the sky due to an O-ring failure after the ship was launched in unsafe temperatures.

In a recent article in Popular Mechanics, Professor Marta Marchlewska at the Polish Institute of Psychology explained the cause for such conspiracies. “People who say that astronauts are still alive refuse to accept that bad things accidentally happen to good people. So, there's someone behind the disaster or it simply did not happen.”

The author of the article then summarizes: “A conspiracy theory tames the great chaos around us, which is the likely explanation for these implausible ideas. It’s easier to blame the imagined secret machinations of influential people, serving dark agendas, than admitting life can be a cruel beast."

Possible Preaching Angle:

People are tempted to believe a lie when the truth challenges our false beliefs. People want to believe that good things happen to good people and bad things to bad people. People want to believe they we are able to be good. But none of that is true. But, as followers of Christ, we have something far more trustworthy to tame the great chaos around us.

Only 44 people have reached the summit of all 14 of the world’s 26,000-foot peaks, according to the record books. Or, maybe no one has. The difference rides on a timeless question getting a fresh look--what is a summit?

Ed Viesturs believes he knows. He is one of the 44, the only American on the list. In 1993, climbing alone and without supplemental oxygen or ropes, he reached the “central summit” of Shishapangma, the world’s 14th-highest mountain. Most climbers turn around there, calling it good enough.

Before him was a narrow spine of about 300 feet, a knife-edge of snow with drops to oblivion on both sides. At its end was the mountain’s true summit, a few feet higher in elevation than where he stood. “Too dangerous,” Ed told himself. He retreated but then he said, “I was one of those guys where if the last nail in the deck hasn’t been hammered in, it’s not done.” Eight years later, Ed climbed within reach of Shishapangma’s summit again. With a leg on each side of the narrow mountain spine, he shimmied across it. He touched the highest point and scooted back to relative safety.

There is a summit, and then there is everything below it. Can close ever be good enough? By asking a simple-sounding question—What is the summit?—the researchers are raising doubts about past accomplishments and raising standards for future ones.

Eberhard Jurgalski has spent 40 years chronicling the ascents of the 26,000-foot peaks. And now he has some jarring news: It is possible that no one has ever been on the true summit of all 14 of those peaks. Some stopped on the central summit, not daring to straddle the ridge the way Viesturs did. Some turned around at a popular selfie-taking spot without scaling the precarious ridge hidden just beyond it.

Climber and author David Roberts says, “The summit does matter. Why does it matter? Because it’s the whole point of mountaineering. It’s the goal that defines an ascent.”

Australian explorer Damien Gildea said, “People are stopping short because it’s too hard. And I say, that’s not really a good excuse for a climber.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Let’s also beware the danger of giving up before reaching the finish line of the Christian life. Thinking that “close enough” is “good enough” leaves us short of the prize (Phil. 3:14).

Over the years belief in conspiracy theories have proliferated in America and in many parts of the world. Some of them include:

-The US government deposits $630,000 into an inaccessible, secret bank account for every person born in the USA. Only those who know the correct top-secret codes can access THEIR money.

-Victims of some mass shootings, especially Sandy Hook, were crisis actors paid by the government as part of a secret plot to take away citizen’s guns.

-Jews secretly control governments all over the world and own all the major banks.

In ministering to people, Christians need to look at these weird and irrational beliefs not with condescension, but at what is really behind them. In reviewing conspiracy theories, author J.C. Pan writes that these anxiety-based beliefs flourish when citizens feel politically or economically marginalized:

People end up susceptible to outlandish ideas not because they’re inordinately foolish or ill-intentioned, but because they’re living in times of enormous socioeconomic instability and political discord. Put another way, conspiracy theories… (are a) signal that a democracy is already decaying. Combating them effectively has less to do with sounding the alarm than with taking up a broader fight for economic equality and for robust, democratic social institutions.

There are a handful of "hinge" moments in world history. June 6, 1944, or D-Day, was one of those moments. On that day hung the balance of power in World War II—and the fate of the world. One of the mostly unknown heroes of D-Day was a man who never set foot on a Normandy beach, never commanded a single troop and never wore a uniform—Andrew Jackson Higgins.

Higgins was the man responsible for designing and building the LCVP, the small landing boats that brought the troops onto the beaches on D-Day. If Higgins hadn't had the foresight to see the need for them, then design and build them, former President Dwight Eisenhower said, "the whole strategy of the war would have been different."

And what's even more amazing is that Higgins did it all without any request from the military—in fact he did so by pushing against the wishes of the US Navy. At the time, the Navy was only interested in larger vessels like destroyers and battleships. They had no interest in smaller vessels, especially not the LCVPs that Higgins had in mind.

If you've ever seen a D-Day movie, you know what an LCVP is. They're the small landing vessels with flat bottoms and high sides that ushered the troops up to the beach, then dropped their flat bows into the water to let the troops exit straight ahead, into horrifying barrages of gunfire. The Navy didn't want LCVPs, which later became known to soldiers and the world as "Higgins Boats," because their small size and flat bottoms meant they couldn't navigate across the English Channel.

But Higgins saw what the Navy couldn't see. That, after crossing the channel, the larger ships would not be able to get troops close enough to the shore. The assault on the beaches of Normandy involved dozens of battleships, scores of destroyers, and thousands of Higgins Boats. The larger vessels transported personnel and equipment across the English Channel under the cover of darkness. Then, as tens of thousands of troops boarded thousands of Higgins Boats, the destroyers and battleships barraged the coastline from a distance to prepare it for the landing troops.

No wonder, then, that twenty years after D-Day, President Dwight Eisenhower casually told the writer Stephen Ambrose, "[Higgins] is the man who won the war for us."

Editor's Note: This story is also retold in Stephen Ambrose's book D-Day: The Climactic Battle of World War II.

The 24/7 Wall St. blog reviewed some of the greatest product launch blunders in recent times, including Google Glass, Burger King's Satisfries, the New Coke, and Windows Vista. Hindsight is 20/20, but many of these product gaffes were the result of a company losing focus on what they do best.

For instance, consider the Colgate Kitchen Entrée line (yep, the toothpaste people) first introduced in 1982. For some reason Americans didn't associate pre-prepared frozen meals with the name Colgate. Then there was Harley-Davidson's unfocused ventures into cologne, wine coolers, and aftershaves. They all bombed. In 1979 Clairol came out with Touch of Yogurt Shampoo, which caused confusion as some people started eating their shampoo for breakfast. Or consider PepsiCo subsidiary Frito-Lay's 2005 foray into the lip balm industry. According to 24/7 Wall Street, "While Cheetos has been a popular snack for more than six decades, Cheetos-flavored lip balm failed to catch on with consumers." You think?

If you own stock in Amazon, you get a letter from founder Jeff Bezos each year, reminding you of Amazon's commitment to think long-term. In his 2015 letter to shareowners, Bezos opens: ''A dreamy business offering has at least four characteristics. Customers love it, it can grow to very large size, it has strong returns on capital and it's durable in time—with the potential to endure for decades" [emphasis added].

Bezos founded Amazon in 1994, and his commitment to long-term thinking got him to thirty-fifth on the global Fortune 500 list in just 20 years. Each year, he prints his first letter to shareholders at the beginning of the annual report. It's a simple, symbolic act to highlight his value for the long view. The original 1997 letter outlines nine ways Amazon will demonstrate their long-term approach, including the statement: "We will continue to make investment decisions in light of long-term market leadership considerations rather than short-term profitability considerations or short-term Wall Street reactions.''

Possible Preaching Angles: Eternity; Heaven—Christians could say, "Good for Amazon and Jeff Bezos, but why not think even further ahead—like into eternity?"

Every battle is won or lost before it is fought.

—Sun Tzu, Chinese General and Strategist, in The Art of War, written in the late sixth-century BC

The church's core mission never changes, but how it's accomplished is up for revision.