>Enrico Fermi was saying that fission chan reactions were 50 years off if they could ever be done at all, two years before he built the first nuclear pile. The Wright brothers were saying heavier-than-air flight was 50 years off shortly before they built the first Wright flyer.
The one hope we may be able to cling to is that this logic works in the other direction too—that AGI may be a lot closer than estimated, but so might alignment.
They also recorded this follow-up with Yudkowsky if anyone’s interested:
https://twitter.com/BanklessHQ/status/1627757551529119744
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>Enrico Fermi was saying that fission chan reactions were 50 years off if they could ever be done at all, two years before he built the first nuclear pile. The Wright brothers were saying heavier-than-air flight was 50 years off shortly before they built the first Wright flyer.
The one hope we may be able to cling to is that this logic works in the other direction too—that AGI may be a lot closer than estimated, but so might alignment.