Zvi Mowshowitz—From the Magic Pro Tour to Wall Street, the Logic of Bookmaking, and the Future of AI Ethics (#105)

About this episode

Zvi Mowshowitz discusses his journey from competitive gaming to high-stakes finance and AI ethics.

About Zvi My history with Zvi Mowshowitz goes back over 20 years to our days as teammates on the Magic Pro Tour, where we won a Grand Prix and top-8ed a Pro Tour together. After his competitive gaming career and a stint designing games at Wizards of the Coast and heading up a Cyberpunk TCG design team in Denver, Zvi took his unique systems-thinking mind into high-stakes finance. He managed risk as a professional bookmaker in sports betting, traded crypto for a hedge fund, and worked quantitative trading desks at firms like Jane Street. Today, he’s focused his incredible intellect on the world of artificial intelligence, writing five times a week at his blog, Don’t Worry About the Vase , tracking the breakneck evolution of large language models and the critical safety challenge of AI alignment. In this episode, we dive deep into the math of pattern recognition, our wild days on the Pro Tour, the high-stress realities of trading, and how to navigate the massive societal shifts coming with AI. Zvi delivers insights on rationality and adaptability that will resonate with anyone trying to think clearly in a rapidly changing world. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss…

People in this episode

Host: Justin Gary

Guest: Zvi Mowshowitz

Topics covered

• AI ethics
• sports betting
• pattern recognition
• quantitative trading
• game design
• Magic Pro Tour

Keywords

• AI alignment
• sports betting
• crypto trading
• pattern recognition
• game design
• Magic Pro Tour

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Wizards of the Coast, Jane Street

Books & works: Don’t Worry About the Vase

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