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

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.

The other writings from Scott Alexander on scientific racism are also another good point imho

What specifically would you highlight as being particularly egregious or wrong?

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

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)

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

> 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.

Disagree (the article linked in the GP is a great read with extensive and specific citations) and reminder that you can just make the comment you'd like to see instead of trying to meta sea lion it into existence. Steel man away.

The article linked is literally nothing but a collection of Alexander's comments and comments on his blog. It in no way provides any reason to believe he is wrong, it just laughs at him, strawmaning his takes.

He just wrote a piece about the Lynn IQ maps that is practically a self-parody. Nobody needs to strawman him on this topic. Here is a direct quote:

Isn't It Super-Racist To Say That People In Sub-Saharan African Countries Have IQs Equivalent To Intellectually Disabled People? No. In fact, it would be super-racist not to say this!

The horse is completely out of the barn on this controversy about Alexander's views.

He is 100% right that it is more racist to ignore the IQ difference between countries and therefore the factors that create them than it is to pretend all countries have the same average iq. The only way to help people who have been hurt by environmental factors that hurt development is to study those factors and who they effect.