I agree. I look at the red/blue/purple curves and I think “obviously the red curve is slower than the blue curve”, because it is not as steep and neither is its derivative. The purple curve is later than the red curve, but it is not slower. If we were talking about driving from LA to NY starting on Monday vs flying there on Friday, I think it would be weird to say that flying is slower because you get there later. I guess maybe it’s more like when people say “the pizza will get here faster if we order it now”? So “get here faster” means “get here sooner”?
Of course, if people are routinely confused by fast/slow, I am on board with using different terminology, but I’m a little worried that there’s an underlying problem where people are confused about the referents, and using different words won’t help much.
If a friend calls me and says “how soon can you be in NY?” and I respond with “well, the fastest flight gets there at 5PM” and “the slowest flight gets me there at 2PM”, my friend sure will be confused and sure is not expecting me to talk about the literal relative speeds of the plane.
In-general, I think in the context of timeline discussions, people almost always ask “how soon will AI happen?” and I think a reasonable assumption given that context is that “fast” means “sooner” and “slow” means “later”.
I agree that in the context of an explicit “how soon” question, the colloquial use of fast/slow often means sooner/later. In contexts where you care about actual speed, like you’re trying to get an ice cream cake to a party and you don’t want it to melt, it’s totally reasonable to say “well, the train is faster than driving, but driving would get me there at 2pm and the train wouldn’t get me there until 5pm”. I think takeoff speed is more like the ice cream cake thing than the flight to NY thing.
That said, I think you’re right that if there’s a discussion about timelines in a “how soon” context, then someone starts talking about fast vs slow takeoff, I can totally see how someone would get confused when “fast” doesn’t mean “soon”. So I think you’ve updated me toward the terminology being bad.
I agree. I look at the red/blue/purple curves and I think “obviously the red curve is slower than the blue curve”, because it is not as steep and neither is its derivative. The purple curve is later than the red curve, but it is not slower. If we were talking about driving from LA to NY starting on Monday vs flying there on Friday, I think it would be weird to say that flying is slower because you get there later. I guess maybe it’s more like when people say “the pizza will get here faster if we order it now”? So “get here faster” means “get here sooner”?
Of course, if people are routinely confused by fast/slow, I am on board with using different terminology, but I’m a little worried that there’s an underlying problem where people are confused about the referents, and using different words won’t help much.
If a friend calls me and says “how soon can you be in NY?” and I respond with “well, the fastest flight gets there at 5PM” and “the slowest flight gets me there at 2PM”, my friend sure will be confused and sure is not expecting me to talk about the literal relative speeds of the plane.
In-general, I think in the context of timeline discussions, people almost always ask “how soon will AI happen?” and I think a reasonable assumption given that context is that “fast” means “sooner” and “slow” means “later”.
I agree that in the context of an explicit “how soon” question, the colloquial use of fast/slow often means sooner/later. In contexts where you care about actual speed, like you’re trying to get an ice cream cake to a party and you don’t want it to melt, it’s totally reasonable to say “well, the train is faster than driving, but driving would get me there at 2pm and the train wouldn’t get me there until 5pm”. I think takeoff speed is more like the ice cream cake thing than the flight to NY thing.
That said, I think you’re right that if there’s a discussion about timelines in a “how soon” context, then someone starts talking about fast vs slow takeoff, I can totally see how someone would get confused when “fast” doesn’t mean “soon”. So I think you’ve updated me toward the terminology being bad.