“‘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)
“‘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)