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The singularity is coming in 2027 and no one cares.
Dwarkesh is out with a new essay in which he argues that there is a high chance (not 100%, but like 75%) that we get an intelligence explosion in the next 12 months equal in magnitude to the jump between GPT-3.5 and GPT-6.
This jump would be caused by the automation of AI research.
I highly, highly recommend giving this a read or a listen. Dwarkesh is, in my mind, the most thoughtful public intellectual around today (sorry Scott) and is known for his in depth research and thoughtful interviews. In his essay, it's likely that he addresses whatever objections that you have that just sprung to mind, so just give it a read. Really.
At this point, it seems the only thing that would stop superintelligence from forming is an unknown unknown, as in there is some fundamental constraint or that hasn't been identified, or an emergent phenomenon that only reveals itself in the future. I guess this has all been rehashed a million times, and I don't have a lot to add beyond what Dwarkesh said, so I'll revert to the purpose of this board which is to make some social commentary.
People are completely unprepared for what's coming.
In financial forums that I visit, and in youtube videos I watch, people are entirely dismissive of what is happening at OpenAI and Anthropic. "It doesn't really think! They're losing money! Drug development, no way! It only works for software! The software is buggy! They'll be bankrupt in a year! Switching costs are zero! Cheap Chinese models will win!".
Etc.. Etc... Etc...
Some concepts are just too high IQ for most people. Probably most people with an IQ below 100 don't really understand supply and demand for example. And the floor for understanding recursive self improvement is a lot higher.
Everything feels pretty normal now. But there's at some point going to be a big oh shit moment when social consensus hits and 90% of the population goes from denialism to doomerism in a short period. I have a hard time predicting what will happen then except that I'd assign a 50% chance that Anthropic will be the most valuable company on Earth in 12 months. Cold comfort. Superintelligence is coming and it's going to change everything. Maybe it will be good...
I was an AI doubter for a long time. After using it for work for the past three months, no longer so much. It's a better biologist than me (it just can't do benchwork). Add on a few more layers of recursive self-improvement, and it'll be a better biologist than my PI. We don't even need super intelligence for this thing to completely flip the entire job market on its head.
Why would I ever hire a tax accountant or financial planner when AI can do these things far better for far less money? The entire white-collar finance wing of the economy, which most of my "successful" peers seem to be a part of is going to fall apart in the next few years, even without super intelligence. Same goes for software, administration, and many other cushy PMC positions. The world is going to change rapidly, even without super intelligence.
Because if the AI fucks up your taxes, Sam Altman and Dario Amoedi aren't going to assume responsibility.
The question is when and if paying $0 for my monthly GPT subscription and tanking the very rare fines becomes a better deal than paying $5000 a year.
The requirement to take legal responsibility for their advice also makes lawyers surprisingly unhelpful in my experience. They become gnomic and unhelpful, requiring you to work out the correct advice from their extremely limited (and therefore completely defensible) hints.
If you're paying $5,000 for someone to do your taxes, then your taxes are involved enough that the risk of fines isn't rare anymore.
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