I don’t see the trends that one would extrapolate in order to arrive at very short timelines on the order of a few years. The obvious trend extrapolations for AI’s economic impact give timelines to full remote work automation of around a decade, and I expect these trends to slow down by default.
Actually, I think the most obvious extrapolation of revenue indicates around 4 years to full remote work automation: current annualized AI company revenue is around $20 billion, we see 3x revenue growth per year, AI companies might internalize 10% of the value, so for ~$20 trillion of value due to remote work automation, we might expect ~$2 trillion in revenue which would naively happen in a bit over 4 years (late 2029).
(I don’t think revenue extrapolation is a great forecasting methodology on my views for multiple reasons, but still seems worth engaging with to some extent.)
I think there are plausible reasons for this trend to speed up or to slow down (speeding up seems plausible even without AI accelerated AI R&D making a difference), and more minimally we’ll see big impacts prior to full automation. Slowing down seems more likely than speeding up or staying at the same rate, but doesn’t seem overwhelmingly likely (maybe I’d say around 30% chance that the trend stays at or above exponential up to $2 trillion in global revenue).
I discuss this sort of extrapolation and related considerations in more detail here.
So, I think a key takeaway from revenue extrapolation is it makes <4 year timelines look quite plausible (though it doesn’t suggest they are >50% likely)!
Actually, I think the most obvious extrapolation of revenue indicates around 4 years to full remote work automation: current annualized AI company revenue is around $20 billion, we see 3x revenue growth per year, AI companies might internalize 10% of the value, so for ~$20 trillion of value due to remote work automation, we might expect ~$2 trillion in revenue which would naively happen in a bit over 4 years (late 2029).
(I don’t think revenue extrapolation is a great forecasting methodology on my views for multiple reasons, but still seems worth engaging with to some extent.)
I think there are plausible reasons for this trend to speed up or to slow down (speeding up seems plausible even without AI accelerated AI R&D making a difference), and more minimally we’ll see big impacts prior to full automation. Slowing down seems more likely than speeding up or staying at the same rate, but doesn’t seem overwhelmingly likely (maybe I’d say around 30% chance that the trend stays at or above exponential up to $2 trillion in global revenue).
I discuss this sort of extrapolation and related considerations in more detail here.
So, I think a key takeaway from revenue extrapolation is it makes <4 year timelines look quite plausible (though it doesn’t suggest they are >50% likely)!