First off, let me say that I could easily be wrong. My belief is both fairly low confidence and not particularly high information.
If that were true, start-ups wouldn’t be a thing, we’d all be using Yahoo Search and Lockheed Martin would be developing the first commercially successful reusable rocket. Hell, it might even make sense to switch to planned economy outright then.
I don’t think any of that follows. Any good idea can be enough for a successful start-up. AGI is extremely narrow compared to the entire space of good ideas.
But why does it matter? Would screaming at the top of your lungs about your new discovery (or the modern equivalent, publishing a research paper on the internet) be the first thing someone who has just gained the key insight does? It certainly would be unwise to.
It doesn’t matter that much, but it makes it a bit harder—it implies that someone outside of the top research labs not only has the insight first, but has it first and then the labs don’t have it for some amount of time.
Any good idea can be enough for a successful start-up. AGI is extremely narrow compared to the entire space of good ideas.
But we’re not comparing the probability of “a successful start-up will be created” vs. the probability of “an AGI will be created” in the next x years, we’re comparing the probability of “an AGI will be created by a large organization” vs. the probability of “an AGI will be created by a single person on his laptop” given that an AGI will be created.
Without the benefit of hindsight, is PageRank and reusable rockets any more obvious than the hypothesized AGI key insight? If someone who had no previous experience working in aeronautical engineering—a highly technical field—can out-innovate established organizations like Lockheed Martin, why wouldn’t the same hold true for AGI? If anything, the theoretical foundations of AGI is less well-established and the entry barrier lower by comparison.
First off, let me say that I could easily be wrong. My belief is both fairly low confidence and not particularly high information.
I don’t think any of that follows. Any good idea can be enough for a successful start-up. AGI is extremely narrow compared to the entire space of good ideas.
It doesn’t matter that much, but it makes it a bit harder—it implies that someone outside of the top research labs not only has the insight first, but has it first and then the labs don’t have it for some amount of time.
But we’re not comparing the probability of “a successful start-up will be created” vs. the probability of “an AGI will be created” in the next x years, we’re comparing the probability of “an AGI will be created by a large organization” vs. the probability of “an AGI will be created by a single person on his laptop” given that an AGI will be created.
Without the benefit of hindsight, is PageRank and reusable rockets any more obvious than the hypothesized AGI key insight? If someone who had no previous experience working in aeronautical engineering—a highly technical field—can out-innovate established organizations like Lockheed Martin, why wouldn’t the same hold true for AGI? If anything, the theoretical foundations of AGI is less well-established and the entry barrier lower by comparison.