Insofar as that’s what he thinks, he’s wrong. Short timelines and fast takeoff are positively correlated. However, he argues (correctly) that slow takeoff also causes short timelines, by accelerating R&D progress sooner than it otherwise would have (for a given level of underlying difficulty-of-building-AGI). This effect is not strong enough in my estimation (or in Paul’s if I recall from conversations*) to overcome the other reasons pushing timelines and takeoff to be correlated.
*I think I remember him saying things like “Well yeah obviously if it happens by 2030 it’s probably gonna be a crazy fast takeoff.”
What do you think of Paul Christiano’s argument that short timeline and fast takeoff is anti-correlated?
Insofar as that’s what he thinks, he’s wrong. Short timelines and fast takeoff are positively correlated. However, he argues (correctly) that slow takeoff also causes short timelines, by accelerating R&D progress sooner than it otherwise would have (for a given level of underlying difficulty-of-building-AGI). This effect is not strong enough in my estimation (or in Paul’s if I recall from conversations*) to overcome the other reasons pushing timelines and takeoff to be correlated.
*I think I remember him saying things like “Well yeah obviously if it happens by 2030 it’s probably gonna be a crazy fast takeoff.”
did you mean “short timelines” in your third sentence?
Ooops yeah sorry typo will fix