I’m afraid I don’t follow the objection. We can land 10k multiples onto a graph with a linear axis: the unlogged METR plot does exactly this, as do many pictures of exponential growth. I agree as a practical matter you often want to log the y axis to display this sort of data—you might get a nice straight line, and in any case your time series doesn’t spend a lot of its time within a pixel of the x-axis.
But that is distinct from (e.g.) whether “AI capabilities” are improving proportional to Time horizon or log(Time Horizon). Or, if you prefer deflationary/‘taboo X’ approaches, what is the transfer function between (these measurements) and (whatever you’re interested in).
I’m afraid I don’t follow the objection. We can land 10k multiples onto a graph with a linear axis: the unlogged METR plot does exactly this, as do many pictures of exponential growth. I agree as a practical matter you often want to log the y axis to display this sort of data—you might get a nice straight line, and in any case your time series doesn’t spend a lot of its time within a pixel of the x-axis.
But that is distinct from (e.g.) whether “AI capabilities” are improving proportional to Time horizon or log(Time Horizon). Or, if you prefer deflationary/‘taboo X’ approaches, what is the transfer function between (these measurements) and (whatever you’re interested in).