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The "AI 2027" Scenario: How realistic is it?

(garymarcus.substack.com)
129 points NotInOurNames | 2 comments | 22 May 25 17:37 UTC | HN request time: 0.415s | source
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Aurornis ◴[22 May 25 19:10 UTC] No.44065615[source]▶
Some useful context from Scott Alexander's blog reveals that the authors don't actually believe the 2027 target:

> Do we really think things will move this fast? Sort of no - between the beginning of the project last summer and the present, Daniel’s median for the intelligence explosion shifted from 2027 to 2028. We keep the scenario centered around 2027 because it’s still his modal prediction (and because it would be annoying to change). Other members of the team (including me) have medians later in the 2020s or early 2030s, and also think automation will progress more slowly. So maybe think of this as a vision of what an 80th percentile fast scenario looks like - not our precise median, but also not something we feel safe ruling out.

They went from "this represents roughly our median guess" in the website to "maybe think of it as an 80th percentile version of the fast scenario that we don't feel safe ruling out" in followup discussions.

Claiming that one reason they didn't change the website was because it would be "annoying" to change the date is a good barometer for how seriously anyone should be taking this exercise.

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amarcheschi ◴[22 May 25 19:37 UTC] No.44065924[source]▶
The other writings from Scott Alexander on scientific racism are also another good point imho
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A_D_E_P_T ◴[22 May 25 20:07 UTC] No.44066295[source]▶
What specifically would you highlight as being particularly egregious or wrong?

As a general rule, "it's icky" doesn't make something false.

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amarcheschi ◴[22 May 25 20:15 UTC] No.44066378[source]▶
And it doesn't make it true either

Human biodiversity theories are a bunch of dogwhistles for racism

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Biodiversity_Institute

And his blog's survey reports a lot of users actually believing in those theories https://reflectivealtruism.com/2024/12/27/human-biodiversity...

(I wasn't referring to this Ai 2027 in specific)

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HDThoreaun ◴[22 May 25 20:52 UTC] No.44066836[source]▶
Try steel manning in order to effectively persuade. This comment does not address the argument being made it just calls a field of study icky. The unfortunate reality is that shouting down questions like this only empowers the racist HBI people who are effectively leeches
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1. tptacek ◴[22 May 25 23:31 UTC] No.44068280[source]▶
Hold on a sec. "HBD" is not a field of study; it's a meme ecosystem. There are (at least) two fields of actual scientific study that intersect with HBD: psychometrics, the subspecialty of psychology that deals in IQ measurement and twin studies, and molecular genetics, the quantitative subspecialty of genetics that studies correlations in the genome across large populations with marked traits (which can include things educational attainment).

Neither of these fields does "IQ maps", which are an article of faith in HBD circles. As soon as someone breaks out the Lynn IQ maps, they lose the "we're just doing science" card. Alexander did a whole recent article about them. We are past the point where anybody gets to high-horse criticism of his HBD stuff as un-rigorous.

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2. amarcheschi ◴[23 May 25 06:12 UTC] No.44070350[source]▶
I'm not sure I understood your point.

In my root comment, when I said "good point" I didn't mean good point as good, it was meant as a good point of maybe not taking seriously whatever he says. I realize it wasn't clear because reading my root comment again I'm not sure either what it was meant to be understood by the readers