This report describes a series of exercises run with the Business and Civil Society scenario on the Infinite Potential platform. In this scenario, players take on the role of business and civil society leaders and must confront multiple overlapping challenges from artificial general intelligence (AGI), including economic disruption, massive labor displacement, increased risk of cyberattacks, and potential loss of control from an AGI system.

Infinite Potential—Insights from the Business and Civil Society Scenario

After-Action Report from a Sequence of Day After Artificial General Intelligence Exercises

Richard S. Girven, Beba Cibralic, Gregory Smith

ResearchPublished Apr 13, 2026

This report describes a series of exercises run with the Business and Civil Society scenario on the Infinite Potential platform. In this scenario, players take on the role of business and civil society leaders and must confront multiple overlapping challenges from artificial intelligence (AI) and artificial general intelligence (AGI), including economic disruption, massive labor displacement, increased risk of cyberattacks, and potential loss of control from an AI system.

The Business and Civil Society scenario broadened the experiment’s participants beyond government officials, as had been the case in prior Infinite Potential scenarios. Rather than roleplaying U.S. National Security Council members, participants played themselves—chief executive officers, entrepreneurs, investors, technologists, philanthropists, academics, and civic leaders—so that insights would reveal how nonstate actors perceive responsibility and agency when fundamental systems begin to fail.

Key Findings

  • AGI was perceived as both a national security crisis and a social crisis. Participants consistently viewed AGI not as a purely technological or economic event but as a combined threat to national security, public cohesion, and social legitimacy.
  • Economic and social resilience are inseparable. Across runs, participants expressed concern about an economy without participation, in which a minority captured gains while majorities lost meaning and agency.
  • Leadership and narrative coherence were considered decisive instruments of stability. When information systems failed, the first demand was for a trusted voice. Players emphasized the importance of leadership and that government and civic leaders must communicate early, truthfully, and repeatedly, framing a moral story of shared purpose that can survive potential disinformation and panic.
  • Communication redundancy is civil defense. Loss of the internet was described as “as devastating as a nuclear attack.”
  • Speed itself has become a governance variable. All groups recognized that decision cycles measured in months are incompatible with technology that evolves in weeks or hours.
  • Fiscal policy is central to social stability. Participants proposed new taxation models to redistribute wealth and finance retraining, social safety nets, and preparedness infrastructure.
  • Cross-sector and international coordination are forms of safety engineering. Leaders urged permanent liaison mechanisms between governments, frontier AI companies, and civil society networks.
  • Agency must be designed in advance. When models, markets, and media moved faster than deliberation in this scenario, participants often described feelings of helplessness. Preparedness therefore means predefined, no-regret actions—capabilities, institutions, or compacts that can operate automatically when human decision bandwidth collapses.

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Girven, Richard S., Beba Cibralic, and Gregory Smith, Infinite Potential—Insights from the Business and Civil Society Scenario: After-Action Report from a Sequence of Day After Artificial General Intelligence Exercises. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2026. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA4767-1.html.
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