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A deep critique of AI 2027's bad timeline models
- brcmthrowaway 1y agoSo much bikeshedding and armchair expertise displayed in this field.
- goatlover 1y agoWhich would that be, the arguments for ASI being near and how that could be apocalyptic, or the push back on those timelines and doomsday (or utopian) proclamations?
- evilantnie 1y agoI don’t think the real divide is “doom tomorrow” vs “nothing to worry about.” The crux is a pretty straightforward philosophical question "what does it even mean to generalize intelligence and agency", how much can scaling laws tell us about that? The back-and-forth over σ²’s and growth exponents feels like theatrics that bury the actual debate.
- vonneumannstan 1y ago>The crux is a pretty straightforward philosophical question "what does it even mean to generalize intelligence and agency", how much can scaling laws tell us about that? Truly a bizarre take. I'm sure the Dinosaurs also debated the possible smell and taste of the asteroid that was about to hit them. The real debate. lol.
- evilantnie 1y agoThe dinosaurs didn't create the asteroid that hit them, so they never had the chance for a real debate.
- ysofunny 1y agowith all that signaling... it's almost like they're trying to communicate!!! who would've thought!?
- TimPC 1y agoThis critique is fairly strong and offers a lot of insight into the critical thinking behind it. The parts of the math I've looked at do check out.
- yodon 1y agoSo... both authors predict superhuman intelligence, defined as AI that can complete tasks that would take humans hundreds of hours, to be a thing "sometime in the next few years", both authors predict "probably not before 2027, but maybe" and both authors predict "probably not longer than 2032, but maybe", and one author seems to think their estimates are wildly better than those of the other author. That's not quite the level of disagreement I was expecting given the title.
- jollyllama 1y agoThat's not very investor of you
- LegionMammal978 1y agoAs far as I can tell, the author of the critique specifically avoids espousing a timeline of his own. Indeed, he dislikes how these sorts of timeline models are used in general: > I’m not against people making shoddy toy models, and I think they can be a useful intellectual exercise. I’m not against people sketching out hypothetical sci-fi short stories, I’ve done that myself. I am against people treating shoddy toy models as rigorous research, stapling them to hypothetical short stories, and then taking them out on podcast circuits to go viral. What I’m most against is people taking shoddy toy models seriously and basing life decisions on them, as I have seen happen for AI2027. This is just a model for a tiny slice of the possibility space for how AI will go, and in my opinion it is implemented poorly even if you agree with the author's general worldview. In particular, I wouldn't describe the author's position as "probably not longer than 2032" (give or take the usual quibbles over what tasks are a necessary part of "superhuman intelligence"). Indeed, he rates social issues from AI as a more plausible near-term threat than dangerous AGI takeoff [0], and he is very skeptical about how well any software-based AI can revolutionize the physical sciences [1]. [0] https://titotal.substack.com/p/slopworld-2035-the-dangers-of-mediocre https://titotal.substack.com/p/slopworld-2035-the-dangers-of... [1] https://titotal.substack.com/p/ai-is-not-taking-over-material-science https://titotal.substack.com/p/ai-is-not-taking-over-materia...
- ysofunny 1y ago
- lubujackson 1y agoThese predictions seem wildly reductive in any case and it seems like extrapolating AI's ability to complete task that would take a human 30 seconds -> 10 minutes is far different than going from 10 minutes to 5 years. For one reason, a 5 year task generally requires much more input and intent than a 10 minute task. Already we have ramped up from "enter a paragraph" to complicated Cursor rules and rich context prompts to get to where we are today. This is completely overlooked in these simple "graphs go up" predictions.
- echelon 1y agoI'm also interested in error rates multiplying for simple tasks. A human can do a long sequence of easy tasks without error - or easily correct. Can a model do the same?
- kingstnap 1y agoThe recent Apple "LLMs can't reason yet" paper was exactly this. They just tested if models could run an exponential number of steps. Of course, they gave it a terrible clickbait title and framed the question and graphs incorrectly. But if they did the study better it would have been "How long of a sequence of algorithmic steps can LLMs execute before making a mistake or giving up?"
- kypro 1y agoAs someone in the P(doom) > 90% category, I think in general making overly precise predictions are a really bad way to highlight AI risks (assuming that was the goal of AI 2027). Making predictions that are too specific just opens you up to pushback from people who are more interested in critiquing the exact details of your softer predictions (such as those around timelines) rather than your hard predictions about likely outcomes. And while I think articles like this are valuable to refine timeline predictions, I find a lot of people use them as evidence to dismiss the stronger predictions made about the risks of ASI. I think people like Nick Bostrom make much more convincing arguments about AI risk because they don't depend on overly detailed predictions which can be easily nit-picked at, but are instead much more general and focus more on the unique nature of the risks AI presents. For me the risk of timelines is that they're unknowable due to the unpredictable nature of ASI. The fact we are rapidly developing a technology which most people would accept comes with at least some existential risk, that we can't predict the progress curve of, and where solutions would come with significant coordination problems should concern people without having to say it will happen in x number of years. I think AI 2027 is interesting as a science fiction about potential futures we could be heading towards, but that's really it. The problem with being an AI doomer is that you can't say "I told you so" if you're right so any personal predictions you make have no close to no expected pay-out, either socially or economically. This is different to other risks which if you predict accurately when others don't you can still benefit from. I have no meaningful voice in this space so I'll just keep saying we're fucked because what does it matter what I think, but I wish there were more people with influence out there who were seriously thinking about how they can best influence rather than stroking their own own egos with future predictions, which even if I happen agree with do next to nothing to improve the distribution of outcomes.
- Fraterkes 1y agoI’m not trying to be disingenuous, but in what ways have you changed your life now that you belief theres >90% chance to an end to civilization/humanity? Are you living like a terminal cancer patient? (Im sorry, I know its a crass question)
- allturtles 1y ago
- boznz 1y agoI expect the predictions for fusion back in the 1950's and 1960's generated similar essays, they had not got to ignition but the science was solid; the 'science' with moving from AGI to ASI is not really that solid yet we have yet to achieve 'AI ignition' even in the lab. (Any AI's that have achieved consciousness feel free to disagree)
- fasthands9 1y agoI do agree generally with this, but AI 2027 and other writings have moved my concern from 0% to 10%. I know I sound crazy writing it out, but many of the really bad scenarios don't require consciousness or anything like that. It just requires they be self-replicating and the ability to operate without humans shutting them off.
- StochasticLi 1y agoPeople who don't know that much about a topic tend to be very vocal. This is purely a work of science fiction.
- staunton 1y agoThis is a lot of text, details and hair splitting just to say "modeling things like this is bullshit". It's engaging "seriously" and "on the merits" with something that from the very start was just marketing fluff packaged as some kind of prediction. I'm not sure if the author did anyone a favor with this write-up. More than anything, it buries the main point ("this kind of forecasting is fundamentally bullshit") under a bunch of complicated-sounding details that lend credibility to the original predictions, which the original authors now get to agrue about and thank people for pointing out "minor issues which we have now addressed in the updated version".
- ed 1y agoAnyone old enough to remember EPIC 2014? It was a viral flash video, released in 2004, about the future of Google and news reporting. I imagine 2027 will age similarly well. https://youtu.be/LZXwdRBxZ0U https://youtu.be/LZXwdRBxZ0U
- laidoffamazon 1y agoI somehow hadn't seen this before! A fun watch. - Google buying TiVo is very funny, but ended up being accurate - Google GRID is an interesting concept, but we did functionally get this with Google Drive - MSN Newsbotster did end up happening, except it was Facebook circa ~2013+ - GoogleZon is very funny, given they both built this functionality separately - Predicting summarized news is at least 13 years too early, but it's still correct - NYT vs GoogleZon also remarkably prescient, though about 13 years too early as well - EPIC pretty accurately predicts the TikTok and Twitter revenue share, though, again, about 12 years too early - NYT still hasn't gone offline, and was bolstered by viewership during the first Trump term, and print subscriptions are the lowest they've ever been Really great video - it does seem like they predicted 2024 more than 2014, where people unironically thought haitians were eating dogs and that food prices had gone up 200% because of what they saw on TikTok and elected a wannabe tyrant as a result
- WithinReason 1y agoWow! This is remarkable accurate
- mlsu 1y agoMy niece weighed 3 kg one year ago. Now, she weighs 8.9 kg. By my modeling, she will weigh more than the moon in approximately 50 years. I've analyzed the errors in my model; regrettably, the conclusion is always the same: it will certainly happen within our lifetimes. Everyone needs to be planning for this -- all of this urgent talk of "AI" (let alone "climate change" or "holocene extinction") is of positively no consequence compared to the prospect I've outlined here: a mass of HUMAN FLESH the size of THE MOON growing on the surface of our planet!
- habinero 1y agoLOL, exactly. All of the weird AGI/doomer/whatever bullshit we're calling it/ feels like exactly this: people who think they're too smart to fall prey to groupthink and bias confirmation, and yet predictably are falling prey to groupthink and bias confirmation.
- mlsu 1y agoI have more fun reading it as a kind of collaborative real-time sci-fi story. Reads right out of a Lem novel.
- NalNezumi 1y agoThere's a reason the 2027 and a lot of those weird guys come from (or overlap heavily with) the rationalist movement. <insert Obama giving Obama a medal meme>
- Terr_ 1y agoRationalizing religious impulses movement. :p
- Workaccount2 1y agoWe have watched many humans grow so we have a pretty good idea of the curve. A better analogy is an alien blob appeared one day and went from 3kg to 9kg in a year. We have never seen one of these before, so we don't know what it's growth curve looks like. But it keeps eating food and keeps getting bigger.
- sensanaty 1y agoEveryone discussing some AGI superbeing a la Skynet is falling for the hype pushed hard by AI companies hook, line and sinker. These things are dangerous not because of some sci-fi event that might or might not happen X years from now, they're dangerous now for perfectly predictable reasons stemming primarily from executive and VC greed. They won't have to be hyperintelligent systems that are actually good or better at everything a human is, you just need to sell enough CEOs on the idea that they're good enough now to reach a problematic state of the world. Hell, the current "agents" they're shoving out are terrible, but the danger here stems from idiots hooking these things up to actual real world production systems. We already have AI systems deciding who does or doesn't get a job, or who gets fines and tickets from blurry imagery where they fill in the gaps, or who gets banned off monopolistic digital platforms. Hell, all the grifters and scammers are already using these systems because what they care about is quantity and not quality. Yet instead of discussing the actual real dangers happening right now and what we can do about it, we're instead focusing on some amusing but ultimately irrelevant sci-fi scenarios that exist purely as a form of viral marketing from AI CEOs that have gigantic vested interests in making it seem as if the black boxes they're pushing out into the world are anything like the impressive hyperintelligences you see in sci-fi media. I'm as big of a fan as Philip K. Dick as anyone else, and maybe there is some validity to worrying a bit about this hypothetical Skynet/Bladerunner/Butlerian Jihad future, but how about we shift more of our focus on the here and now, where real dangers already exist?
- cwillu 1y ago“Everyone discussing some fission superbomb is falling for the hype. Nuclear reactors are dangerous not because of some sci-fi chain reaction that might or might not happen, they're dangerous now for perfectly predictable reasons stemming primarily from radiation and radioactive waste.” The straight forward mitigation for the hypothetical situation is to halt development; this is not what the ai companies are pushing for, so I'm not convinced that this line of thinking can be meaningfully attributed to the marketing strategy of ai companies.
- ifdefdebug 1y agoAnalogy doesn't work because the bomb came first and the reactor later, that is, regarding fission the reactor isn't even here yet. And it was clear from the beginning that the chain reaction is real not hypothetical.
- Animats 1y agoWill the number of bugs increase exponentially over time, or faster than exponentially? How do all those bugs get removed?
- stephc_int13 1y agoThe reality is that almost every curve looking like an exponential is a logistic curve (sigmoid) in disguise. If your model is relying on exponential (geometric growth) it is very likely wrong.
- fasthands9 1y agoI feel like that's true for most economic things but is that necessarily the case for things such as computation? For instance, my understanding is that computers have been getting exponentially faster for 70 years. I realize the thing they are modeling (intelligence?) is a bit hard to define so I hope/think they are wrong. But I'm not sure how to be so certain.
- unaindz 1y agoWe are getting there already with computers. They have been doing some clever tricks lately to keep up but the reality is transistor size is not reducing at the rate it was before and it already shows (in CPU/GPU size for example)
- serjester 1y agoI listened to their podcast with Dwarkesh and found them incredibly off putting. They’ve done so little confidence modeling and have completely failed to understand they’re dealing with a chaotic system. The smartest people in the world struggle to predict Apple’s stock price next year and yet they think they’ve found a formula to predict the onset of super intelligence. Pure hubris. I really appreciate the write up, it’s refreshing to see a review with such rigor.