Move 37 Is the Moment AI Changes Everything. It’s Suddenly Happening Everywhere
By Bram de Vries ·
The history of progress is littered with moments—moments that look like mere technical glitches in hindsight but fundamentally shatter the existing rulebook.
When a single stone rewrites decades of human strategy
The history of progress is littered with moments—moments that look like mere technical glitches in hindsight but fundamentally shatter the existing rulebook. Nothing illustrates this better than AlphaGo’s Move 37. What started as a contest between Lee Sedol, the legendary Go champion, and Google DeepMind's AI program was not merely a sporting event; it was an economic parable played out on a board of black and white. The move itself, placed at coordinate (0,5) in the top left corner, had less than a 1 in 10,000 chance of being selected by human players, yet it created long-term board advantages that professional minds could not immediately perceive. As linkedin.com reported, Lee Sedol spent nearly 15 minutes contemplating a response to this single stone. This was the moment when "Go strategy was being rewritten before our eyes."
The cost of thinking like an algorithm
What we are witnessing is not merely advanced computation; it is the sudden introduction of an overwhelming capability that changes all rules for human enterprise. We cannot afford the luxury of treating AI as another incremental improvement, like a better spreadsheet or a faster container ship. This shift demands a fundamental rethinking of how value is created and moved.
The parallels are stark. Consider the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima. On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over Japanese cities. Before that moment, the rules of conflict were understood; afterward, nothing was safe from immediate, total destruction. The mechanism is identical: a capability suddenly emerges—be it nuclear power or neural networks—that instantly raises the stakes and fundamentally changes the cost structure for every actor on the global stage.
As cleantechnica.com noted in its coverage of Harari’s analysis, AI is evolving an "alien type of intelligence," not one progressing toward human-level mimicry. This isn't about optimizing existing supply chains; it's about creating entirely new categories of possibility—the digital equivalent of the iPhone or the steam engine.
The market will punish caution and complexity
The central error made by policy makers, and indeed by many established firms, is believing that this disruptive power can be managed through regulation designed for yesterday’s industrial age. They mistake a powerful tool for a controllable commodity. This hesitation—the desire to regulate the process rather than adapt to the outcome—is the true risk.
The market does not care about intentions or committee consensus; it only responds to efficiency and scale. The Dutch mercantile tradition taught us that when faced with a new trade route, you don't petition Brussels for permission; you build the port and figure out the rules afterwards. AI is simply the ultimate global commodity, requiring frictionless movement from idea (the data set) to execution (the model).
The era of state-directed caution must end. The only sustainable path forward is radical deregulation coupled with an absolute commitment to open trade in intelligence. We must treat these algorithms not as protected national secrets or regulated utilities, but as the next great infrastructure—one that demands global access and minimal friction for maximum economic yield.