I agree human maturation time is enough on its own to rule out a human reproductive biotech ‘fast takeoff,’ but also:
In any given year the number of new births is very small relative to the existing workforce, of billions of humans, including many people with extraordinary abilities
Most of those births are unplanned or to parents without access to technologies like IVF
New reproductive technologies are adopted gradually by risk-averse parents
Any radical enhancement would carry serious risks of negative surprise side effects, further reducing the user base of new tech
IVF is only used for a few percent of births in rich countries, and existing fancy versions are used even less frequently
All of those factors would smooth out any such application to spread out expected impacts over a number of decades, on top of the minimum from maturation times.
I agree human maturation time is enough on its own to rule out a human reproductive biotech ‘fast takeoff,’ but also:
In any given year the number of new births is very small relative to the existing workforce, of billions of humans, including many people with extraordinary abilities
Most of those births are unplanned or to parents without access to technologies like IVF
New reproductive technologies are adopted gradually by risk-averse parents
Any radical enhancement would carry serious risks of negative surprise side effects, further reducing the user base of new tech
IVF is only used for a few percent of births in rich countries, and existing fancy versions are used even less frequently
All of those factors would smooth out any such application to spread out expected impacts over a number of decades, on top of the minimum from maturation times.