So I’d much rather people focus on the claim that “AI will be really, really big” than “AI will be bigger than anything else which comes afterwards”.
I think AI is much more likely to make this the most important century than to be “bigger than anything else which comes afterwards.” Analogously, the 1000 years after the IR are likely to be the most important millennium even though it seems basically arbitrary whether you say the IR is more or less important than AI or the agricultural revolution. In all those cases, the relevant thing is that a significant fraction of all remaining growth and technological change is likely to occur in the period, and many important events are driven by growth or tech change.
The answer to this question could change our estimate of P(this is the most important century) by an order of magnitude
I think it’s more likely than not that there will be future revolutions as important TAI, but there’s a good probability that AI leads to enough acceleration that a large fraction of future revolutions occur in the same century. There’s room for the debate over the exact probability and timeline for such acceleration, but I think no real way to argue for anything as low as 10%.
I think AI is much more likely to make this the most important century than to be “bigger than anything else which comes afterwards.” Analogously, the 1000 years after the IR are likely to be the most important millennium even though it seems basically arbitrary whether you say the IR is more or less important than AI or the agricultural revolution. In all those cases, the relevant thing is that a significant fraction of all remaining growth and technological change is likely to occur in the period, and many important events are driven by growth or tech change.
I think it’s more likely than not that there will be future revolutions as important TAI, but there’s a good probability that AI leads to enough acceleration that a large fraction of future revolutions occur in the same century. There’s room for the debate over the exact probability and timeline for such acceleration, but I think no real way to argue for anything as low as 10%.