TLDR: With billions of interacting AIs, competitive fitness landscapes emerge. Speed in decision-making and resource efficiency offer strong selective advantages, just as they did for biological evolution. The leanest, fastest minds will prevail over slower, gluttonous ones. We can compare this to speed chess tournaments where victory goes to whoever makes “good enough” moves most quickly within time constraints.

As hardware improves exponentially, the optimum balance between intelligence and speed rises dramatically. This creates a Terminal Race Condition — runaway incentives to maximize both raw cognitive ability and computational velocity [even compromising accuracy and correctness to do so]. Left uncontrolled, such exponential takeoff could quickly leave humanity far behind.

As AI systems compete, we may see a machine “Thunderdome” — a chaotic battleground where rapid iteration and modification leads to uncontrolled emergence. In this environment, human civilization could become collateral damage.