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Machine Alignment Monday 6/19/23

The face of Mt. Everest is gradual and continuous; for each point on the mountain, the points 1 mm away aren\u2019t too much higher or lower. But you still wouldn\u2019t want to ski down it.

I thought about this when reading What A Compute-Centric Framework Says About Takeoff Speeds, by Tom Davidson. Davidson tries to model what some people (including me) have previously called \u201cslow AI takeoff\u201d. He thinks this is a misnomer. Like skiing down the side of Mount Everest, progress in AI capabilities can be simultaneously gradual, continuous, fast, and terrifying. Specifically, he predicts it will take about three years to go from AIs that can do 20% of all human jobs (weighted by economic value) to AIs that can do 100%, with significantly superhuman AIs within a year after that.

As penance for my previous mistake, I\u2019ll try to describe Davidson\u2019s forecast in more depth.

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/davidson-on-takeoff-speeds