The main reason for past discussions of this question has been to upperbound the amount of compute necessary to create AGI: “if evolution could create humans with X yottaflops total, then we can certainly create an AGI with <=X yottaflops—if only by literally simulating molecule by molecule the evolution of humanity”. Basically, the worst possible biological anchor estimate. (Personally, I think it’s so vacuous an upper bound as to not have been worth the energy which has already been put into thinking about it.)
The main reason for past discussions of this question has been to upperbound the amount of compute necessary to create AGI: “if evolution could create humans with X yottaflops total, then we can certainly create an AGI with <=X yottaflops—if only by literally simulating molecule by molecule the evolution of humanity”. Basically, the worst possible biological anchor estimate. (Personally, I think it’s so vacuous an upper bound as to not have been worth the energy which has already been put into thinking about it.)
AGI timeline is not my motivation, but the links look helpful, thanks!