Man I found this a bit confusing to read simply due to counterintuitive use of the word ‘slow’. I think ‘slow takeoff’ is a misleading term (ie naively read it implies “long timelines”) and particularly weird when contrasting it with fast timelines.
And, like, guys you were so close here with the phrase ‘continuous takeoff’ which is a perfectly good, non confusing term! But then went out of its way to keep both terms at once. I kept parsing “slow, continuous takeoff” as meaning “continuous as long timelines.”
“‘continuous takeoff’ which is a perfectly good, non confusing term”—but it doesn’t capture everything we’re interested in here. I.e. there are two dimensions:
speed of takeoff (measured in time)
smoothness of takeoff (measured in capabilities)
It’s possible to have a continuous but very fast (i.e. short in time) takeoff, or a discontinuous but slow (i.e. long in time) takeoff.
Tried to capture this in figure 1, but I agree it’s a bit confusing.
hmm, I might be even more confused than I thought.
I thought you were using “short timelines” / “long timelines” to refer to speed of takeoff, and “fast, discontinuous takeoff” vs “slow, discontinuous takeoff” to refer to smoothness of takeoff, and the part I was objecting to was including both “fast/slow” and “discontinuous/continuous” for the “smoothness of takeoff” labeling.
Oh, I see what you mean now. (i.e. there are three axis, one of which is “length of time overall from-now-until-takeoff-finishes” and one of which is “length of time between “takeoff starting” and “overwhelming superintelligence?”).
Okay, now rather than making a somewhat pedantic complaint about which term to use, my take is “I think fast/slow takeoff is used to mean enough different things that it’s worth spelling out in words what the three-axis is that the graphs are explaining.” I agree that the graphs-as-shown do convey the thing. When I first read the post I thought I understood the point they were making and started skimming before actually parsing the distinction. The might just be me, but, I’d hazard a bet that it’d be a relatively common thing to get confused about.
(my first comment was more gripy/annoyed than I think I endorse, sorry about that. I do overall think the essay was a good/useful thing to write, this just happens to be a pet peeve of mine)
Man I found this a bit confusing to read simply due to counterintuitive use of the word ‘slow’. I think ‘slow takeoff’ is a misleading term (ie naively read it implies “long timelines”) and particularly weird when contrasting it with fast timelines.
And, like, guys you were so close here with the phrase ‘continuous takeoff’ which is a perfectly good, non confusing term! But then went out of its way to keep both terms at once. I kept parsing “slow, continuous takeoff” as meaning “continuous as long timelines.”
“‘continuous takeoff’ which is a perfectly good, non confusing term”—but it doesn’t capture everything we’re interested in here. I.e. there are two dimensions:
speed of takeoff (measured in time)
smoothness of takeoff (measured in capabilities)
It’s possible to have a continuous but very fast (i.e. short in time) takeoff, or a discontinuous but slow (i.e. long in time) takeoff.
Tried to capture this in figure 1, but I agree it’s a bit confusing.
hmm, I might be even more confused than I thought.
I thought you were using “short timelines” / “long timelines” to refer to speed of takeoff, and “fast, discontinuous takeoff” vs “slow, discontinuous takeoff” to refer to smoothness of takeoff, and the part I was objecting to was including both “fast/slow” and “discontinuous/continuous” for the “smoothness of takeoff” labeling.
Oh, I see what you mean now. (i.e. there are three axis, one of which is “length of time overall from-now-until-takeoff-finishes” and one of which is “length of time between “takeoff starting” and “overwhelming superintelligence?”).
Okay, now rather than making a somewhat pedantic complaint about which term to use, my take is “I think fast/slow takeoff is used to mean enough different things that it’s worth spelling out in words what the three-axis is that the graphs are explaining.” I agree that the graphs-as-shown do convey the thing. When I first read the post I thought I understood the point they were making and started skimming before actually parsing the distinction. The might just be me, but, I’d hazard a bet that it’d be a relatively common thing to get confused about.
(my first comment was more gripy/annoyed than I think I endorse, sorry about that. I do overall think the essay was a good/useful thing to write, this just happens to be a pet peeve of mine)