Grothendieck and von Neumann were built using evolution, not deep basic science or even engineering. So in principle all that’s necessary is compute, tinkering, and evals, everything else is about shortening timelines and reducing requisite compute.
Any form of fully autonomous industry lets compute grow very quickly, in a way not constrained by human population, and only requires AI with ordinary engineering capabilities. Fusion and macroscopic biotech[1] (or nanotech) potentially get compute to grow much faster than that. To the extent human civilization would hypothetically get there in 100-1000 years without general AI, serial speedup alone might be able to get such tech via general AIs within years, even without superintelligence.
Drosophila biomass doubles every 3 days. Small things can quickly assemble into large things, transforming through metamorphosis. This is proven technology, doesn’t depend on untested ideas about what is possible like nanotech does. Industry and compute that double every 3 days can quickly eat the Solar System.
Yes the human brain was built using evolution, I have no disagreement that give us 100-1000 years with just tinkering etc we would likely get AGI. Its just that in our specific case we have bio to copy and it will get us there much faster.
Evolution is an argument that there is no barrier, even with very incompetent tinkerers that fail to figure things out (and don’t consider copying biology). So it doesn’t take an arbitrarily long time, and takes less with enough compute[1]. The 100-1000 years figure was about the fusion and macroscopic biotech milestone in the hypothetical of no general AI, which with general AI running at a higher speed becomes 0.1-10 years.
Grothendieck and von Neumann were built using evolution, not deep basic science or even engineering. So in principle all that’s necessary is compute, tinkering, and evals, everything else is about shortening timelines and reducing requisite compute.
Any form of fully autonomous industry lets compute grow very quickly, in a way not constrained by human population, and only requires AI with ordinary engineering capabilities. Fusion and macroscopic biotech[1] (or nanotech) potentially get compute to grow much faster than that. To the extent human civilization would hypothetically get there in 100-1000 years without general AI, serial speedup alone might be able to get such tech via general AIs within years, even without superintelligence.
Drosophila biomass doubles every 3 days. Small things can quickly assemble into large things, transforming through metamorphosis. This is proven technology, doesn’t depend on untested ideas about what is possible like nanotech does. Industry and compute that double every 3 days can quickly eat the Solar System.
Yes the human brain was built using evolution, I have no disagreement that give us 100-1000 years with just tinkering etc we would likely get AGI. Its just that in our specific case we have bio to copy and it will get us there much faster.
Evolution is an argument that there is no barrier, even with very incompetent tinkerers that fail to figure things out (and don’t consider copying biology). So it doesn’t take an arbitrarily long time, and takes less with enough compute[1]. The 100-1000 years figure was about the fusion and macroscopic biotech milestone in the hypothetical of no general AI, which with general AI running at a higher speed becomes 0.1-10 years.
Moore’s Law of Mad Science: Every 18 months, the minimum IQ to destroy the world drops by one point.