optimistic in comparison to the alternative, where humans can't understand anything anymore. if a particularly intelligent sixth grader was highly motivated to

optimistic in comparison to the alternative, where humans can't understand anything anymore. if a particularly intelligent sixth grader was highly motivated to understand chromatic homotopy and had a highly capable private teacher available to her 24/7, she might within a year get to the point where she could apply it by herself to figure out some simple but nontrivial topological properties. (nobody has tested this. maybe it would require at least three years instead of one.) if a particularly intelligent chimpanzee was for some reason highly motivated to understand chromatic homotopy, no matter how many years the most incredible teachers spent explaining it to her, she would never comprehend anything about it. that's the pessimistic scenario: humans will be to future AI like our closest evolutionary relatives are to us. or even more pessimistic: we will be to future AI like insects are to us.