I see it primarily as a social phenomenon because I think the evidence we have today that AGI will arrive by 2030 is less compelling than the evidence we had in 2015 that AGI would arrive by 2030.
The evidence we have today that there will be AGI by 2030 is clearly dramatically stronger than the evidence we had in 2015 that there would be AGI by 2020, and that is surely the relevant comparison. This is not EA specific—we have been ahead of the curve in thinking AI would be a big deal, but the whole world has updated in this direction, and it would be strange if we hadn’t as well.
The evidence we have today that there will be AGI by 2030 is clearly dramatically stronger than the evidence we had in 2015 that there would be AGI by 2020, and that is surely the relevant comparison. This is not EA specific—we have been ahead of the curve in thinking AI would be a big deal, but the whole world has updated in this direction, and it would be strange if we hadn’t as well.