Artificial systems didn’t produce anything a century ago; even without a strong exponential, they’re clearly getting somewhere.
We’ve had a strong exponential since the beginning of computing. Thinking that humans create computers is something of a naive anthropocentric viewpoint: humans don’t create computers and haven’t for decades. Human+computer systems create computers, and the speed of progress is largely constrained by the computational aspects even today (computers increasingly do more of the work, and perhaps already do the majority). To understand this more, read this post from a former intel engineer (and apparently AI lab manager). Enlightening inside knowledge, but for whatever reason he only got up to 7 karma and wandered away.
Also, if you plotted out the data points of brain complexity on earth over time, I’m near certain it also follows a strong exponential.
The differences between all these exponentials are ‘just’ constants.
The vast majority of possible “wants” done thoroughly will destroy us. (Any goal taken to extremes will use all available matter in accomplishing it.)
I find this dubious, mainly because physics tells us that using all available matter is actually highly unlikely to ever be a very efficient strategy.
However, agreed about the potential danger of future hyper-intelligence.
I for one largely agree, but a few differences:
We’ve had a strong exponential since the beginning of computing. Thinking that humans create computers is something of a naive anthropocentric viewpoint: humans don’t create computers and haven’t for decades. Human+computer systems create computers, and the speed of progress is largely constrained by the computational aspects even today (computers increasingly do more of the work, and perhaps already do the majority). To understand this more, read this post from a former intel engineer (and apparently AI lab manager). Enlightening inside knowledge, but for whatever reason he only got up to 7 karma and wandered away.
Also, if you plotted out the data points of brain complexity on earth over time, I’m near certain it also follows a strong exponential.
The differences between all these exponentials are ‘just’ constants.
I find this dubious, mainly because physics tells us that using all available matter is actually highly unlikely to ever be a very efficient strategy.
However, agreed about the potential danger of future hyper-intelligence.