3 ms·
Exponential progress is not required to get to post-scarcity and AI overlords. Linear progress gets you there just as surely.
by supergarfield 8y ago
Exponential progress is not required to get to post-scarcity and AI overlords. Linear progress gets you there just as surely.
- nradov 8y agoBut an S-curve approaching an asymptote won't.
- chrchang523 8y agoA single S-curve will not. However, completion of one line of technological development often unlocks new possibilities. Over the last several centuries, we've ridden many S-curves of varying scales; it has certainly hurt when a particularly large S-curve, such as energy extraction or sequential computing speed, has saturated, but there have always been more than enough promising underexplored possibilities to keep humanity's brightest minds occupied. Both the known laws of physics and the amount of biological activity we still haven't replicated indicate that this state of affairs won't end within the next century. (We might stop exploring due to some sort of apocalypse, of course, but that won't be because there was nothing meaningful left to discover.)