Asymmetric Intentionality in Legal Games: When Players Operate at Different Intentional Levels

When you click 'I Agree' to a major social media platform Terms of Service, you and the platform are playing different games. You operate at Level 3 intentionality: modeling their beliefs about your beliefs, expecting reciprocity, trusting reputation mechanisms. The platform operates at Level 1: optimizing extraction subject to legal constraints, with no 'beliefs' to model. Building on Dennett's intentional stance and Pinker's (2025) analysis of common knowledge, this paper introduces Asymmetric Intentionality Game Theory: a framework for analyzing strategic interactions where players operate at different intentionality levels. When Level 3 agents (humans) face Level 1 agents (corporations, AI systems), standard game-theoretic equilibria break down because the cognitive prerequisites for equilibrium formation do not exist. The paper argues that asymmetric intentionality produces systematic exploitation: Level 1 entities can defect without triggering social sanctions, while Level 3 entities expect cooperation that never materializes. This could explain failures across multiple domains: terms of service exploitation, corporate non-compliance, AI alignment problems.