The most “optimistic” model in that post is linear. That is a model where making something as smart as you is a task of fixed difficulty. The benifit you gain by being smarter counterbalances the extra difficulty of making something smarter. In all the other models, making something as smart as you gets harder as you get smarter. (I am not talking about biological reproduction here, or about an AI blindly copying itself, I am talking about writing code that is as smart as you are from scratch).
Suppose we gave a chicken and a human access to the same computer, and asked each to program something at least as smart as they were. I would expect the human to do better than the chicken. Likewise I would bet on a team of IQ 120 humans producing an AI smarter than they are over a team of IQ 80 humans producing something smarter than they are. (Or anything, smarter than a chicken really).
A few extra IQ points will make you a slightly better chessplayer, but is the difference between not inventing minmax and not being able to write a chess playing program at all, and inventing minmax.
Making things smarter than yourself gets much easier as you get smarter, which is why only smart humans have a serious chance of managing it.
The most “optimistic” model in that post is linear. That is a model where making something as smart as you is a task of fixed difficulty. The benifit you gain by being smarter counterbalances the extra difficulty of making something smarter. In all the other models, making something as smart as you gets harder as you get smarter. (I am not talking about biological reproduction here, or about an AI blindly copying itself, I am talking about writing code that is as smart as you are from scratch).
Suppose we gave a chicken and a human access to the same computer, and asked each to program something at least as smart as they were. I would expect the human to do better than the chicken. Likewise I would bet on a team of IQ 120 humans producing an AI smarter than they are over a team of IQ 80 humans producing something smarter than they are. (Or anything, smarter than a chicken really).
A few extra IQ points will make you a slightly better chessplayer, but is the difference between not inventing minmax and not being able to write a chess playing program at all, and inventing minmax.
Making things smarter than yourself gets much easier as you get smarter, which is why only smart humans have a serious chance of managing it.
Instead of linear, try squareroot, or log.