IMO we are already at a stage where AGI could arrive at any time in some sense, but the probability of it arriving in the next year or so is pretty small—some AI lab would need to have some major breakthrough between now and then, something that enables them to do with merely hundreds of millions of dollars of compute what seems like it should take trillions (with current algorithms). I think we probably have like eight years left or something like that.
Sober view as well, and much closer to mine. I definitely agree that compute will be the big bottleneck—GPT-3 and the scaling hypothesis scare the heck out of me.
8 years makes a lot of sense, after all many predictions point to 2030.
A more paranoid me would like to ask, what number would you give to the probabilities of it arriving: a) next week, b) next year?
And also: are you also paranoid like me looking out the window fom the nano-swarms, or think that at least in the very, very near-term it’s still close to impossible?
I am not looking out my window for the nano-swarms; I think there’s a less than 1% chance of that happening this year. We would need a completely new AI paradigm I think, which is not impossible (It’s happened a bunch of times in the past, and there are a few ideas floating around that could be it) but unlikely and especially unlikely to happen all of a sudden without me hearing signs first. And then even with said new paradigm it would be surprising if takeoff was so fast that I saw nanobots before hearing any disturbing news through the grapevine.
So, <1% chance of nano-swarms surprising me this year, <<1% this week.
Maybe something like 2% chance of agentic AGI (or, APS-AI to use Carlsmith’s term) happening this year?
IMO we are already at a stage where AGI could arrive at any time in some sense, but the probability of it arriving in the next year or so is pretty small—some AI lab would need to have some major breakthrough between now and then, something that enables them to do with merely hundreds of millions of dollars of compute what seems like it should take trillions (with current algorithms). I think we probably have like eight years left or something like that.
Sober view as well, and much closer to mine. I definitely agree that compute will be the big bottleneck—GPT-3 and the scaling hypothesis scare the heck out of me.
8 years makes a lot of sense, after all many predictions point to 2030.
A more paranoid me would like to ask, what number would you give to the probabilities of it arriving: a) next week, b) next year?
And also: are you also paranoid like me looking out the window fom the nano-swarms, or think that at least in the very, very near-term it’s still close to impossible?
I am not looking out my window for the nano-swarms; I think there’s a less than 1% chance of that happening this year. We would need a completely new AI paradigm I think, which is not impossible (It’s happened a bunch of times in the past, and there are a few ideas floating around that could be it) but unlikely and especially unlikely to happen all of a sudden without me hearing signs first. And then even with said new paradigm it would be surprising if takeoff was so fast that I saw nanobots before hearing any disturbing news through the grapevine.
So, <1% chance of nano-swarms surprising me this year, <<1% this week.
Maybe something like 2% chance of agentic AGI (or, APS-AI to use Carlsmith’s term) happening this year?
Fair argument, thanks.