I agree with this post that the accelerative forces of gradual take-off (e.g., “economic value… more funding… freeing up people to work on AI...”) are important and not everyone considers them when thinking through timelines.
However, I think the specific argument that “Gradual take-off implies shorter timelines” requires a prior belief that not everyone shares, such as a prior that an AGI of difficulty D will occur in the same year in both timelines. I don’t think such a prior is implied by “conditioned on a given level of “AGI difficulty””. Here are two example priors, one that leads to “Gradual take-off implies shorter timelines” and one that leads to the opposite. The first sentence of each is most important.
Gradual take-off implies shorter timelines Step 1: (Prior) Set AGI of difficulty D to occur at the same year Y in the gradual and sudden take-off timelines. Step 2: Notice that the gradual take-off timeline has AIs of difficulties like 0.5D sooner, which would make AGI occur sooner than Y because of the accelerative forces of “economic value… more funding… freeing up people to work on AI...” etc. Therefore, move AGI occurrence in gradual take-off from Y to some year before Y, such as 0.5Y.
=> AGI occurs at 0.5Y in the gradual timeline and Y in the sudden timeline.
Gradual take-off implies longer timelines Step 1: (Prior) Set AI of difficulty 0.5D to occur at the same year Y in the gradual and sudden take-off timelines. To fill in AGI of difficulty D in each timeline, suppose that both are superlinear but sudden AGI arrives at exactly Y and gradual AGI arrives at 1.5Y. Step 2: Notice that the gradual take-off timeline has AIs of difficulties like 0.25D sooner, which would make AGI occur sooner than Y because of the accelerative forces of “economic value… more funding… freeing up people to work on AI...” etc. Therefore, move 0.5D AI occurrence in gradual take-off from Y to some year before Y, such as Y/2, and move AGI occurrence in gradual take-off correspondingly from 1.5Y to 1.25Y.
=> AGI occurs at 1.25Y in the gradual timeline and Y in the sudden timeline.
By the way, this is separate from Stefan_Schubert’s critique that very short timelines are possible with sudden take-off but not with gradual take-off, which I personally think can be considered a counterexample if we treat the impossibility of gradual take-off as “long” but not really a counterexample if we just consider the shortness comparison to be indeterminate because there are no very short gradual timelines.
I agree with this post that the accelerative forces of gradual take-off (e.g., “economic value… more funding… freeing up people to work on AI...”) are important and not everyone considers them when thinking through timelines.
However, I think the specific argument that “Gradual take-off implies shorter timelines” requires a prior belief that not everyone shares, such as a prior that an AGI of difficulty D will occur in the same year in both timelines. I don’t think such a prior is implied by “conditioned on a given level of “AGI difficulty””. Here are two example priors, one that leads to “Gradual take-off implies shorter timelines” and one that leads to the opposite. The first sentence of each is most important.
Gradual take-off implies shorter timelines
Step 1: (Prior) Set AGI of difficulty D to occur at the same year Y in the gradual and sudden take-off timelines.
Step 2: Notice that the gradual take-off timeline has AIs of difficulties like 0.5D sooner, which would make AGI occur sooner than Y because of the accelerative forces of “economic value… more funding… freeing up people to work on AI...” etc. Therefore, move AGI occurrence in gradual take-off from Y to some year before Y, such as 0.5Y.
=> AGI occurs at 0.5Y in the gradual timeline and Y in the sudden timeline.
Gradual take-off implies longer timelines
Step 1: (Prior) Set AI of difficulty 0.5D to occur at the same year Y in the gradual and sudden take-off timelines. To fill in AGI of difficulty D in each timeline, suppose that both are superlinear but sudden AGI arrives at exactly Y and gradual AGI arrives at 1.5Y.
Step 2: Notice that the gradual take-off timeline has AIs of difficulties like 0.25D sooner, which would make AGI occur sooner than Y because of the accelerative forces of “economic value… more funding… freeing up people to work on AI...” etc. Therefore, move 0.5D AI occurrence in gradual take-off from Y to some year before Y, such as Y/2, and move AGI occurrence in gradual take-off correspondingly from 1.5Y to 1.25Y.
=> AGI occurs at 1.25Y in the gradual timeline and Y in the sudden timeline.
By the way, this is separate from Stefan_Schubert’s critique that very short timelines are possible with sudden take-off but not with gradual take-off, which I personally think can be considered a counterexample if we treat the impossibility of gradual take-off as “long” but not really a counterexample if we just consider the shortness comparison to be indeterminate because there are no very short gradual timelines.