Issue 61 |💡AI Is Already Smarter Than Most Humans. Here Are 5 Ways to Thrive in the "Move 37" World
Asking when we'll achieve Artificial General Intelligence is the wrong question. We've already crossed a more important threshold, and we aren't ready for what has already happened.
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🏆 Goal: AI has already crossed the threshold where it outperforms most humans. Here are the five steps you can take to avoid being left behind.
I will be honest with you: Chat GPT is smarter than me.
AI knows more than I ever will and can think faster than I can. It makes fewer mistakes (I “hallucinate" in the AI sense of the term almost as much as it does). It has perfect memory, whereas I forget things all the time. This has probably been true for a few months, but the sobering reality is that the current Chat GPT model is more intelligent than I am.
Let me prove my point with a basketball analogy. Consider NBA Superstar and two-time reigning MVP Nikola Jokić.
His peers recently voted him the league's top player. Jokić is not the best in every skill category, however. Some players rebound better than him (Domanas Sabonis averages 14 a game; Jokić is third at almost 13). Others have a higher three-point shooting percentage (Steph Curry). One passes better than him (Trae Young is number one right now; Jokić ranks second). But no player can do all three things as well as he can. To wit, he recently made history, achieving a 31-21-22 stat line; that’s the first time a player had over 30 points, over 20 rebounds, and more than 20 assists in one game.
Chat GPT and AI models today are the Nikola Jokićs of this world. You may be better at them in one thing, but they are better than you in everything else.
The debate over whether we’ve achieved AGI is a distinction without a meaningful difference. It would be like Steph Curry finally accepting that Jokić is a better player only when he becomes a superior three-point shooter.
Why wait for AI to be crowned the Albert Einstein of everything when it is already more intelligent than almost everybody? Stop waiting for AI’s next milestone. It’s already surpassed you. Your career depends on understanding what happened.
The future is already here. In fact, the key turning point occurred nine years ago. While 2016 has become known for Brexit and Donald Trump’s election, a silent but seismic event that year announced the start of a cognitive revolution.
🚨 The Big Idea
The world changed on March 16, 2016. First, that day marked the end of human dominance in Go, an intellectual pursuit that dates back over 2,500 years—to before the time of the OG thinker Aristotle.
During Game 2 of the match between the AlphaGo computer and Grandmaster Lee Sedol, the AI played Move 37—a gambit so unconventional that Lee was left visibly confused. Commentators gasped and thought it was a mistake. Even though it was a maneuver no human had ever made, it turned out to be brilliant: it led AlphaGo to victory in that game and, ultimately, the match.
It also signaled the crossing of a cognitive Rubicon: AI stopped mimicking human thinking and became unconventionally—and incontestably—creative. Most importantly, it was the first example of an AI making a completely counterintuitive decision that proved correct. The AI was right, and experts couldn’t explain or even understand why.
🔑 Move 37 is a crucial milestone in the evolution of our conception of artificial intelligence.
A Move 37 moment is defined by two conditions: First, the AI produces an indisputably better output than a human could (AlphaGo won the game). Second, we accept that the result is better, and humans start deferring to AI. Shortly after his loss, Lee Sedol quit Go altogether and now lectures worldwide about his canary-in-a-coalmine experience as the first brilliant human to be replaced by AI.
To cross the Move 37 threshold, objective achievement and subjective acceptance must both take place. On the first point, AI models are so capable now that they can produce better outcomes than almost all of us (myself included) in most intellectual activities.
The significant shift won't occur until most humans believe these services are superior to us and we start deferring to them. Here's the truth: It's already happened.
We passively accept Netflix’s recommendations in our viewing queue rather than asking our taste-maker friends for their suggestions. We blindly get stuck in “Waze Mazes” and “Google Map Traps” because we assume that AI knows better than we do how to get home. We’ve been surrendering our sovereignty to algorithms for years now, and accepting that AI is already more intelligent than most of us is the logical endpoint of that journey.
🔑 Like Lee Sedol, we all face a similar inflection point in our lives and careers. Whether we realize it or not, we live in a Move 37 world now.
AI does more than execute tasks—it already makes better decisions in fields like finance, business, medicine, and warfare.
AI isn’t just assisting humans—it’s thinking in unexpected ways and finding solutions we hadn’t previously considered. Demis Hassabis - who created AlphaGo - won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry last year for his groundbreaking work using AI to develop novel protein structures.
Finally, remember: Today’s AI is the worst you'll ever face.
AI companies are spending billions of dollars in a cognitive arms race to roll out more capabilities and features. Each week delivers a new model and performance milestone. Even if you believe the existing LLMs can’t “beat” you, do you want to bet your career that they won’t someday soon?
Most people have yet to grasp the stark reality of the situation. We are not ready for what has already happened.
What Does This Mean For You?
If you're still debating when AI will overtake us, you've already fallen behind. Start preparing now.
📈 5 Steps to Stay Ahead in a Move 37 World
1. Rethink your conception of expertise.
The market is shifting from “who knows the most” to “who knows a lot and leverages AI the best.” I no longer want to go to the world’s best doctor; if I have something serious, I want to be seen by an experienced practitioner who’s being supplemented, through AI, with the world’s collective medical knowledge. This will become true in every field.
2. Stop avoiding AI. Start collaborating with it.
Many people aren’t using AI because they don’t know where to start. Others have different reasons: A rock star 10X coder told me he hadn’t embraced AI yet because he didn't want to slow down to learn it, even if it would eventually speed him up. I get it. However, Lee Sedol learned the hard way that AI eventually wins. The generation of Go players after him now uses AI as their co-pilot. The Move 37 world belongs to Centaurs, people who partner with machines. Don’t be like Lee.
3. Invest in meta-skills.
AI still has some Achilles' heels. These models are weaker at systems thinking, and their token limits constrain how horizontal a view they can take. Humans are still better—for now—at big-picture thinking. We’re also superior at sense-making, especially when events affect real humans. Develop your ability to connect the dots and explain them, and you’ll remain the human in the loop for much longer.
4. Display your personality and passion.
In a world where everyone can access super-intelligence in a few seconds for a few cents, something else becomes scarce (and valuable). Singular writing styles will pop off the screen; personal taste will stand out in a sea of algorithmic sameness. When anybody can draw up a perfect list of pros and cons, your conviction and personal story will persuade more people to your side of an argument. Lean into what makes you unique, quirky, and human.
5. Embrace counterintuitive AI insights.
The most significant advantages AI thinking provides come from moves that don’t feel natural to human intuition—but succeed regardless. This will become more common. Look out for a moment - coming soon - when AI proposes an investment strategy that seems illogical but delivers unprecedented returns. What Move 37 insights can AI provide in your company or industry? Don’t blindly follow those suggestions as you would a GPS route, but open your mind to the possibilities of “out of the black box” thinking.
🏆 Key Takeaways
🏁 If You Only Do One Thing
👉 Stop speculating about when “someday, maybe” AGI will arrive and start preparing for the “smarter than you” AI already here.
Like Lee Sedol, you're facing your own Move 37 moment.
Are you ready?
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IoNTELLIGENCE by Ion Valis. I'm a strategic advisor and performance coach to entrepreneurs and executives. To learn more about my work, visit my website or connect on LinkedIn.
AI doesn’t “know” anything, cannot really think, and is not intelligent.
But if the point is that it can emulate some of these things and that the emulations are even more “effective” in some ways, that’s probably true.