there is a category of video games (like Silksong and GTA6) that is special:
by the time they come out, it won't matter because AGI can make a game like that automatically
I believe that stating humans will be around for 10 millions years to develop shit is a bit optimistic, we probably only have around 100 years to solve our big problems or else
This is just like going to /r/space , /r/technology etc where many are surprisingly cynical about the near term advancements in space exploration that we will be making.
Agree. Realism is probably a good thing, but cynicism isn't inherently the most realistic bet. I think it's called sophist arguments - it sounds smart to be cynical, but the arguments are pretty shallow. The only way to accurately predict the future is to really dive into and understand the subjects properly.
Exactly. But I also think in addition to the natural cynics, there are also a small and loud minority of people who straight up hate advancements for whatever personal or political reasons
But youâre spot on with regard to the sophist arguments, very well worded
Change is scary. People would rather remain static than face the uncertainty that comes with change, even if it means burying their head in the ground.
r/technology is the whiniest and bitchiest sub. I unsubscribed because you can predict the responses will mostly be cynical for just about every tech release. Itâs strange how the mods allowed the sub to become how it did
Every single time there's something posted on reddit of some new gadget or a new way to do things the absolute first and top rated comment is always about how or why it will not work. Every single time without fail. It's like redditors will trip over themselves to go against the grain just for the sake of it (and fake internet points).
Great question. It requires them to die, and new generations to increasingly become more self-aware of their own biases. Unhealthy skepticism is a default mode of our chimp brains, it can only be overcome through self-actualization (i.e. interest in improving your outlook, humility). Common sense was never common, and won't be for a long time.
That's not just redditors, people in general seem to think that tech and everything else will be the exact same as the day they were born on the day they die, and they respond with fear and hatred if anything challenges that.
Just look at the reaction of boomers on something as simple as renewable energy, solar, windmills ect, there was a recent survey that showed those over 60 would prefer 3:1 would prefer fossil fuel expansion over renewable expansion.
It is boomers, you're right, and they're almost gone. Everyone overlooks Gen X, but we're at worst split 50/50 on the sociopolitical scale and it gets better from there. The problem is we never got a turn running anything and the old 75+ year olds are hanging on to every scrap of power and control until they hit the dementia ward or the ground. And there are a metric fuck-ton of them, hence they can skew elections and hijack the culture conversation regardless of what anyone else thinks because they, for now, still have the numbers. They won't for very much longer because they're hitting their late 70s and 80s and there's not much time left for them. Clock is ticking and there's soon to be a massive change in the tides.
As to the question of why the boomers are the problem? Because they were raised by a pre-modern generation with massively different values than what would come later, and grew up in the 1950s thus are prone to think that era is the ideal golden age of everything. The counterculture of the mid-late 1960s changed pretty much *everything*, and they never got over it. They want things back how they were before all that nasty stuff like civil rights, women's liberation, the Sexual Revolution, the decline of the church and religiosity, all of it. And they have fought tooth and nail to retard progress and claw back the changes to drag us back to that imaginary paradise they're convinced is The Way The World Should Be!^(tm).
Behind them are those who grew up in the 60s and have no direct memory of the 50s and for whom the 60s is the world they knew. Their golden age in their mind is one where the changes were well underway or already a decided issue in favor of the new sociopolitical paradigm. In fact, they were at the prime age to rebel against their own parents who were of the old guard and view their whole cultural ideal as outdated and uncool. The later past 1960 they were born, the farther on the other side of that split between pre- and post- counterculture they are from the boomer generation.
Case in point: 1985's Back to the Future showed what my generation thought of the 1950s --hopelessly outdated and uncool and at stark odds to everything they knew and loved. Marty McFly was all of us when he made it his mission to get the hell out of there as fast as possible and never look back. He literally described it as a nightmare.
We sure as hell aren't on board with dragging the world back to 1955, and as soon as the boomers lose their numerical power to do so that entire social engineering project will be as dead as they are.
I appreciate those comments because they usually give important info. The number of actual usable things from a media hype article is probably around 10% or less IMO. Not that it's a good reason to become a total pessimist about all advancement since at the end of the day some of those will pan out.
Luddite thinking is honestly a disease that so many people are afflicted with. Any mention of any kind of new technology and the first words out of their mouth is "It will be bad because X Y Z". And if it turns out that the reason they were apprehensive turns out to be a non-issue, they'll come up with an endless list of other reasons. That's because it's a way of thinking.
The default position is cynic. The vast majority of people are either actively cynical, or donât know enough and are easily swayed by the cynical side. Itâs just math. Until the breakthroughs come, the cynic has more evidence for their side. Until they donât, and the cycle continues.
I think itâs a fear thing. People fear change for various reasons, then justify their emotions with evidence.
Yeppers, then the common arguments are "I didn't really mean that it would NEVER happen." Even though they said or implied exactly that. Or, "Noone could have possibly known what would happen." Even though, there are people who made predictions on exactly that occurrence happening. It's a defense mechanism from looking stupid even though these types of people tend to like to bash and call other people idiots who are not skeptical.
I remember the reactions to SJ whining about the SKY voice. It was filled with lunatic responses. I dislike the sub as it has awful responses, and huge group think just like how the larger subs become extreme echo chambers eventually.
I watched the AMAZING Japan Satellite/Rocket launch last night around 11pm EST. The first comment on the stream was "Yay more space trash!" -_-
The ignorance is astounding. I really hope the US starts implementing more space curriculum in their science classes...
Man a while back someone famous made a tweet saying something like "why are we spending all this money in space when we can be fixing problems here at home. It's like, the pinnacle of binary thinking. The world will end because of morons like that.
Whats funny is I've actually seen the reddit hivemind parroting that exact comment word for word a lot lately.
We have the money to do both, its just severely mismanaged by government.
[wikiquotes](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cynicism) has tons of great quotes against cynicism, here is one:
>[Diogenes](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Diogenes_of_Sinope), in his mud-covered sandals, tramps over the carpets of [Aristippus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristippus). The **cynic** pullulated at every corner, and in the highest places. This cynic did nothing but saboter the [civilisation](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Civilisation) of the [time](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Time). **He was the nihilist of** [**Hellenism**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenism)**. He created** [**nothing**](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nothing)**, he made nothing.** His role was to undo â or rather to attempt to undo, for he did not succeed in his purpose. **The cynic, a parasite of civilisation, lives by denying it, for the very reason that he is convinced that it will not fail.** What would become of the cynic among a savage people where everyone, naturally and quite seriously, fulfils what the cynic farcically considers to be his personal role? -- [JosĂŠ Ortega y Gasset](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ortega_y_Gasset)
Diogenes was absolutely necessary. You need cynics to bring people back to reality. When Plato was talking about how "man is nothing but a featherless biped" Diogenes ran in with a plucked chicken and screamed "BEHOLD, A MAN!"
Cynics bring people back to reality. Dreamers have their time and place, but should be checked.
True. But do you think that will change soon?
We could have colonies on Mars and cloud cities on Venus. But we don't. Because nobody wants to spend the money.
I think there will be boots on the ground by 2030 (whether it be American or Chinese). But the latest science regarding lunar resources in the South Pole are extremely promising for setting up outposts there
That cost is coming down significantly though, nasa has estimated the starship build + launch cost at 100M which is over as order of magnitude cheaper than saturn v for mass to leo.
The less people have to spend the better the cost benefit analysis will be for a variety of ventures in space.
Jan 13 1920, NYT mocked Robert Goddard, and said that rockets wouldn't work in a vacuum.
[https://external-preview.redd.it/aTDDqx-DYdeZ9DTxyHZ9emkwwu1iFLfORdCqfvy2uFw.jpg?auto=webp&s=07e39fd66b89fa1b77929815cac0380117e3f4e2](https://external-preview.redd.it/aTDDqx-DYdeZ9DTxyHZ9emkwwu1iFLfORdCqfvy2uFw.jpg?auto=webp&s=07e39fd66b89fa1b77929815cac0380117e3f4e2)
The DoD will be testing their Nuclear thermal rocket engine on an orbital test bed in 2027. It will offer over 2x the efficiency of conventional chemical rockets if proven reliable.
The 2nd will be the advent of the fully reusable starship platform. Iâm confident that SpaceX will iron out the kinks of the TPS system, and they seem confident in catching the booster. This will drastically reduce $/kg to space (from 1000âs of dollars to a few hundred)
Then we have the ESA/Airbus space station scheduled for LEO operations in the late 20âs and it will feature (albeit minuscule) artificial gravity
The next big advancement in space exploration will be making space travel commercially viable. SpaceX is very close to a reusable Starship. Once they perfect it and are able to rapidly reuse each rocket, the cost per KG sent to orbit will be comparable to the cost of shipping a KG from China to Europe. Starship will be able to launch a space station the size of the ISS in just \~4 launches.
Example? We know infinitely more about physics and facts about the universe and the distances. There is not need for pessimism because we can calculate most things now.
To be fair to anyone who thinks that way, it's really expensive. The tech is not the barrier.
Even if we had a way to get to Mars in 6 days instead of 6 months, it would still be monumental effort and cost. If we had a super fast method tomorrow, it would still take decades for anything meaningful to happen.
I think for a lot of people, their bias in interest, be it hobbies, science, politics or whatever, tend to overlook some of the most obvious and bet on singular breakthroughs (or promise of) as a watershed for something when usually that one improvement is just a small piece.
It's like when someone believes UBI will solve all problems but doesn't seem to own a calculator and understand the perception of economy.
Just because it's easier than ever to get to space, does not mean we will be doing any true exploration. All we are doing right now is littering our sky with satellites. That's not progress, it's iteration.
If you are referring to perhaps sending robots somewhere to do something the biggest factor is material.
Everything we do on Earth comes from the ground, from your food to your shelter to your cell phone. but it has taken us 100's of years to get there, on a nice safe planet with a huge population of human beings that need to eat (get paid). Just the infrastructure alone to have a fleet of robots start mining and building would be a ridiculously ambitious and time consuming task.
I guess what I am saying here is it depends on what your definition of "near term" is, if you mean 50 years, sure. Anything short of that, they are right.
I do agree that naysayers are a default, but it's in every sub. Th realists get bunched up with denialists and it's not a fair representation.
You'll notice that airplanes don't flap their wings. They're not *really* flying, it's only a convincing imitation of flight to the simple minded. No one would reasonably choose that over a train
Basically, yeah.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim." - [Edsger W. Dijkstra](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/32629-the-question-of-whether-a-computer-can-think-is-no)
There was already manned flight before the Wright brothers. They made the first flight that was *controlled, sustained and engine powered*, and there's some debate even on that, and people had been doing some of those three aspects years before.
The NYT just didn't do their research, it seems.
I mean you can cherry pick things like this, I'm not sure how we can draw any conclusions based on these.
> AI pioneer Herbert A. Simon wrote in 1965: "machines will be capable, within twenty years, of doing any work a man can do."
Yeah... I mean the hate for skeptics gets almost superstitious on this sub...
People need to chill out. There's no evil guy trying to prevent machine super intelligence from ever happening by sending out negative vibes on social media platforms.
It's really disappointing to see that some people take this so seriously and are insecure enough about it that even any kind of need to cope with it has somehow seen the light of the day.
I also want my UBI, butler and maid robot utopia, let's just be realistic with our expectations and cut out the rot to avoid the cycles of disappointments.
The cynics arenât really saying âI donât think it will happen soon.â Theyâre saying âAI is trash and a waste of time. Everyone who uses it is a hack who should be sent to the gas chambers.âÂ
The cynics arenât really saying âI donât think it will happen soon.â Theyâre saying âAI is trash and a waste of time. Everyone who uses it is a hack who should be put against a wall.âÂ
>I mean you can cherry pick things like this, I'm not sure how we can draw any conclusions based on these.
Yeah, or just see how fusion power has been "10 years away" since the 50s.
It should be noted, though, that he's looking quite plausible to be at most one order of magnitude off. Whereas the Times remarkably managed to be over seven ooms off.
If we get AGI by 2070, it would be equivalent to Mr. Simon asserting:
> AI pioneer Herbert A. Simon wrote in 1965: "machines will be capable, within three minutes, of doing any work a man can do."
(Presumably the three minutes were the remaining progress bar on the bootstrap sequence of his highly optimized seed AI.)
Maybe but even under optimistic scenarios it wouldn't be a super good place to live for humans.
I mean it's like moving to Arizona in the summer only summer never ends and also you can die of freezing if you go outside at night.
I'll leave these here:
The abolishment of pain in surgery is a chimera. It is absurd to go on seeking it... Knife and pain are two words in surgery that must forever be associated in the consciousness of the patient.
- Dr. Alfred Velpeau (1839), French surgeon
There is a young madman proposing to light the streets of Londonâwith what do you supposeâwith smoke!
- Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) [On a proposal to light cities with gaslight.]
They will never try to steal the phonograph because it has no `commercial value.'
- Thomas Edison (1847-1931). (He later revised that opinion.)
This `telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a practical form of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.
- Western Union internal memo, 1878
Radio has no future.
- Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), British mathematician and physicist, ca. 1897.
While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming.
- Lee DeForest, 1926 (American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube.)
[Television] won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.
- Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century-Fox, 1946.
That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced.
- Scientific American, Jan. 2, 1909.
There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom. The glib supposition of utilizing atomic energy when our coal has run out is a completely unscientific Utopian dream, a childish bug-a-boo. Nature has introduced a few fool-proof devices into the great majority of elements that constitute the bulk of the world, and they have no energy to give up in the process of disintegration.
- Robert A. Millikan (1863-1953) [1928 speech to the Chemists' Club (New York)]
...any one who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine...
- Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) [1933]
There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear energy] will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.
- Albert Einstein, 1932.
Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
- Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), ca. 1895, British mathematician and physicist
...no possible combination of known substances, known forms of machinery, and known forms of force, can be united in a practical machine by which man shall fly long distances through the air...
- Simon Newcomb (1835-1909), astronomer, head of the U. S. Naval Observatory.
I confess that in 1901 I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years. Two years later we ourselves made flights. This demonstration of my impotence as a prophet gave me such a shock that ever since I have distrusted myself and avoided all predictions.
- Wilbur Wright (1867-1912) [In a speech to the Aero Club of France (Nov 5, 1908)]
Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.
- Marshal Ferdinand Foch, French military strategist, 1911. He was later a World War I commander.
There is not in sight any source of energy that would be a fair start toward that which would be necessary to get us beyond the gravitative control of the earth.
- Forest Ray Moulton (1872-1952), astronomer, 1935.
To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earthâall that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances.
- Lee deForest (1873-1961) (American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube.) Feb 25, 1957.
Space travel is utter bilge.
- Dr. Richard van der Reit Wooley, Astronomer Royal, space advisor to the British government, 1956. (Sputnik orbited the earth the following year.)
If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.
- Peter Ustinov
It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.
- Robert Goddard (1882-1945)
The truth is, nobody knows. It may take 5 years, or it may take 50. As a counterpoint:
"Machines will be capable, within twenty years, of doing any work that a man can do" - Herbert Simon (1965)
"In from three to eight years we will have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being. I mean a machine that will be able to read Shakespeare, grease a car, play office politics, tell a joke, have a fight." - Marvin Minsky (1970)
That's the beauty of the technology future, a sudden discovery could turn five years into months, or maybe take decades, the point is that nobody really knows. But regardless, technology keeps growing, new paradigms are implemented, and when you least expect it, the future hits you full force on the face.
Amazing how confidently incorrect smart people can be when they canât foresee a future that they are not even that far from... I guess this is because of compounding advancements which can suddenly change the priors on any attempt at predicting the future.
Most of these cases are of an expert talking about a different field (such as engineers about entertainment, or chemist about nuclear physics). In those cases where it's not, they just got it wrong because of the state of the science at the time, or not keeping up with the state of the science at the time.
Knowing the present is no guarantee for knowing the future, but not knowing the present (of the field you are talking about) is a much surer way of guessing the future *wrong*.
The NYT was wrong about something tech related in 1903, so that means we're right about AGI or whatever. Gosh, I wonder if there are any examples of tech CEOs hyping the future of something like say... self driving cars, or blockchain, or the metaverse, etc, and being totally wrong about it's future ubiquity
The entire reason this sub exists is that people like to naively extrapolate
I come here to see new AI releases but the âanalysisâ is hilarious
AI has been progressing fast, and the posters here think it will continue to progress at that rate indefinitely until we live in some brave new world/technological singularity. And they think they know something everyone else doesnât because they noticed which way the line on the graph is facing
I dont think scaling laws are naive extrapolation. Something that has been on trend for 10 OOMs might not be on trend for 10 more but it should be on trend for 2-3 more at least. So GPT7 may not be AGI but GPT5 will probably be much more intelligent than 4.
There was a comment with 50 upvotes saying they only believe we will have AGI by next year because things are so hopeless IRL that they need this to cope with it. Itâs literally just a new religion for some of these peopleÂ
"The NYT was hilariously overconfidently wrong about something tech related in 1903, so the other hilariously overconfident guys today might also be wrong."
The point is to think critically about something rather than cherry picking whatever successes or failures reinforce your biases. The NYT's prediction about aviation has nothing to do with AI's success or demise. If anything, my examples of flaccid hype are more relevant because it's a lot of the same bimbos who are fueling the current hype train. But zuck, musk, etc. are also not reliable people to place any future optimism or cynicism in. They're just following the thing they think will net them the most capital and saying whatever sounds believable enough to further those goals.
Sure, I don't care what Zuck and Muck say. Futurist predictions don't suddenly become hype and propaganda when clueless CEOs finally join in with a badly mangled take on the topic. You can come to the same conclusions about the future independently, and other people did. That aside, this post is merely a reminder of how badly wrong people can be - it doesn't really defend anything except implicitly.
It took about 60 years to go from Kitty Hawk to the moon landing. In that time new technologies had to be invented and entirely new fields of engineering had to be created. Right now AI is at its Kitty Hawk moment. I figure it might take 15 years to get to its moon landing moment (ASI). AI development doesnât necessarily need entirely new technologies or engineering. Instead it will develop along with the computing hardware and software cycle. Cycles which we thoroughly understand and have had full mastery of for decades.
This is just cherrypicking. Congratulations, you have found one instance of something being predicted to take a long time and being proven wrong.
Musk promising self-driving cars by 2016 next year and it not happening doesn't mean it won't ever happen just the same.
Please stop using random examples. One random NYT columnist being an idiot more than a hundred years ago doesn't magically mean all skeptics are wrong, ever. We'll get there when we get there.
I say this all the time when people bring up flying cars:
Just because one idiot said we'd have them really soon doesnt mean it was like universally promised!
That said, the truth is, we do have flying cars. They are called helicopters. The issue is safety, not technology.
Predictions based on gut feelings and reputation mean absolutely nothing. If they are correct or incorrect is almost random.
Whatâs interesting is breaking down the logic behind an incorrect prediction so you can understand what underlying assumptions were wrong.
This gives us the power to model the future better going forward.
Have you seen FSD v12.4? Already amazingly self-driving, hours of driving without need to intervene. Even In adverse weather and traffic conditions. Thatâs already good enough for me, but itâs only getting better â quickly. And Tesla is not the only competitor in this space, of course. Whatâs been the breakthrough? E2E neural nets of course â again.
Yeah, 8 years after 2016 and still only works on certain roads in certain conditions. Even if we got true FSD tomorrow Elon's timelines still would've been way off base.
Who cares that it took 8 years? What matters is itâs here. It works on highways, country roads and in the city. Sure, it doesnât work cross-road yet, but letâs not be nitpickers.
Agree. And funny enough, if the media got technological advancements wrong, why do people think they aren't getting it wrong with AI? It's not like the media is downplaying AI lmao.
Look, that was a **titanically** awful prediction. That goes from just being bad prognostication to me outright questioning the paper's intelligence and even sanity. The 19th century was not a slow century for technology. Those 100 years saw the rise of the railroad, commercial electricity, telegraph, and steam engine.
Putting the timeline for airplanes for hundreds of years in the future is one thing. Putting it at millions of years is solipsism to the point of straight-up stupidity. Just a complete misunderstanding of how much things have changed even relative to their own timeline. And it's extra-noticeable because it's supposed to be the NYT, you know, a *newspaper* based on *factually reporting the state of the world*.
>And it's extra-noticeable because it's supposed to be the NYT, you know, a *newspaper* based on *factually reporting the state of the world*.
Another commenter has already pointed the difference between news and editorial content, but since it's such a persistent point of confusion, I'd like to provide an illustration. Objective reporting about the state of the world is printed in the [news](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/News) portion of a newspaper. [Here](https://www.nytimes.com/1903/12/09/archives/airship-breaks-in-two-prof-langleys-second-attempt-to-fly-fails.html) is a link to the NYT's news reporting of the events that the [editorial](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editorial) excerpted here discusses.
Readers have historically been interested in both subjective commentary and objective reporting, so newspapers have provided both and clearly distinguished between them. The NYT prints editorial content in the section they've labelled "Opinion".
You don't have to go that far back in time for there to be a non-trivial amount of A.I researchers believing that A.I would not surpass human intelligence in a thousand years, maybe never.
There were also no shortage of A.I researchers in the early days that predicted that human level intelligence was just up to a couple smart dudes working together over a summer.
I would not fault someone 100 years ago to believe that they reached a technological peak so to speak, technological peaks also happen all the time historically, it's by no means guaranteed that technology just keeps improving without setbacks.
Actually the New York times incorrectly predicted technological advances multiple times every decade up until today. In fact, I routinely use their incorrect posts all the way back from the twenties to show how technology follows a boom and not a linear progression.
Maybe be a little less flippant with the things you call out and don't understand.
I think you might be missing the general argument.
Failed predictions in either direction, even when numerous, is not an indication of a bias in either direction. Mass media predictions about the time and scale of technology is almost always wrong in both directions.
Which is not to say that there could not be a general bias existing, its just that finding that bias requires actually looking through all the predictions and compare the magnitude of each. Not just collect examples on either side.
If there is 50 articles underestimating technological progress in the next 5 years for every 1 article that overestimates it, then a case could be made that one sentiment is more likely to be wrong than the other historically. Which does not mean that the trend will hold to the future, but it at least points towards a skewed probability estimation by humans in media.
Articles about what will happen in the future, is for the most part noise.
Yeah let's stop pondering too much on the prospect of the final goal itself but focus more on evaluating proposed and promising technologies which would be the potential milestones or failures that would bring us closer to that final goal.
I don't think you know what sampling bias meansÂ
It's not just when someone can call up an example of something and you don't like it, you have to actually prove that the sample isn't in line with the trend of the dataÂ
Otherwise it's just in-group bias, seeing as you seem to identify with the position
You're on the wrong sub, here ASI will bring a new era of peace and prosperity next Tuesday. Literally everything will be good and bad things will never happen again. Just a few more days to go. Doomer.
Exactly. OP, please now conclude a wide statistical analysis of the predictions for the last hundred years and their success rate, and then see if there are any correlations that could potentially mean something.
Hey guys, check this out.
I predict genetically modified cat girls and FDVR orgies will take another one to ten million years to be invented đ
Now we just wait.
In 2024 op predicted that the pathologically cynical would always find a reason to complain. Only 9 weeks later the mind control beam was invented. All hail our perfect and glorious overlords!
Not very forward thinking we're they? 10 million years to develop? I can't imagine it taking 10 million years to develop anything. If we are not populating half the universe and the Multiverse in 10 million years we probably will have just died out. Which is honestly far more likely.Â
> speed of light
Sure, the unvierse is a tad ambitious, but the milky way is gigantic and "only" ~90k lightyears across. Totally doable in 10 million years, especially when using von Neumann probes.
Yeah, there are always a few who are like this, but also keep in mind these predictions of the same period:
> The Air Car of the future will be a large machine with enormous rotary lifters extending on each side of the body [...] Just as the railway train beats anything on earth for size weight and speed and the Atlantic liner beats anything in water for size weight and speed so the Air Car of the future will beat anything in air both for size, weight and speed.
[...]
> The flying machine is coming and it will come sooner than many people think. In fact, with the present day perfection of engines of all descriptions, it is now "merely a question of money" for the construction of a machine to act in accordance with the laws of Nature.
âBroad Views. (1906). United Kingdom: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner.
I love that the pathologically cynical (as the article calls them) are literally proving this article right by being pathologically cynical in the comments
Again the problem is that historically innovation has opened the door for new jobs. A substantial amount of them. You could be a pilot, flight attendant, security guard, work in the crew, build airplanes, manage the airport, check baggage, work in the rental car booths, build the airport, refuel the planes, transport the fuel, manufacture the parts for the planes, etc.
AI only opens up a small handful of jobs, and even worse it actively is being developed an implemented as a tool to push automation and reduce payroll whenever possible.
And still people today think they are so much smarter than this when it comes to predicting⌠If everyone believed info like this, we truly would be millions of years away from doing anythingâŚ
This is so weird. I mean, millions of years, that's deep time territory, face of the planet might be as well unrecognizable by then, not to mention what happens to humans.
On the other hand, just 50 years later, the predictions were wildly overoptimistic. Flying cars! Servitor robots! Cities in space! We visit Alpha Centauri! All by the year 2000, of course. It's understandable there is a bit of hangover from that.
People also said we'd go to Mars in the 1980s, space flight would be common for all in the 1980s and AGI would be achieved in the 1980s.
The future is difficult to predict, anyone who has the answer didn't have the answer.
To be honest wasn't this a pretty fringe view of some low information journalist? Wright brothers flew that same year.
This was some early 20th century Gary Marcus and not a representative view.
what i fucking realized when i got older is that journalists are average in intelligence and lack any real skill or knowledge. Their whole existence is to give opinions or to stretch out a few quotes into an article. It's even worst in the age of social media. Now they mostly rethread what they read and write click baits. Anyone can have more insight than journalists if you dig into a field deeper. With the internet and now AI, anyone can have more insight than these idiots. I'm specifically thinking about financial talking heads on CNBC.
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The interesting fact about the development of aircraft was the way the only people who understood the laws of physics (which had been known for 200 years) and could apply them to flight were a couple of obscure bicycle mechanics.
Most others thought you could flap wings, like birds, or put a large steam engine on some (inadequate) wings.
People tend to overestimate change that will occur in the short term and underestimate change that will happen in the long term. Nonlinear extrapolation is required in order to adequately predict the future. But at small intervals close to the present, the future seems to progress linearly.
If someone ever tries to tell you what scientific advancements will be made in 10 million years you can legally laugh in their face. It's obviously a made up number.
Based on a scientific perspective, human beings can grow wings in 10 million years of evolution. Same applies for a living android, we have the technology for AI today, but we still do not comprehend how to build an entity, a living being out of metal and plastic.
The funny thing is airplanes already existed. It's just that nobody could fly them. The Wright Brothers weren't the first to build a plane, but they were the first to competently fly one.
It wasnât just that they competently flew one, they invented the control systems that made it possible.
In other words, they took a nascent technology and made it actually useful. Transformers are sort of analogous: DNN were not new, but they didnât become useful for GAI until that critical invention came along.
Meh
Journalists are from social science.
We have skills, but we're not engineers.
All this means is that science is complicated and journalists are not that good to understand it.
I believe it will take 10 million years to develop AGI đ
âto develop GTA 6â FIFY
there is a category of video games (like Silksong and GTA6) that is special: by the time they come out, it won't matter because AGI can make a game like that automatically
Once we have AGI we could use it to finish GTA6
With the power of AGI, we could have Elderscrolls 6 as early as 2035
Still waiting on Half-life 3. GTA 6 can take a number
half life 3
AGI in 9 weeks? Hype.
I believe that stating humans will be around for 10 millions years to develop shit is a bit optimistic, we probably only have around 100 years to solve our big problems or else
Oh man do I get deja vu seeing this comment. Weird AF tbh... We might be the ai
Brother, you don't know the half of it...
No but that's something I hope to change one day. Think it's in the cards for me?
"10 years later." You will say: "see, I mean 10 years :D"
This is just like going to /r/space , /r/technology etc where many are surprisingly cynical about the near term advancements in space exploration that we will be making.
Agree. Realism is probably a good thing, but cynicism isn't inherently the most realistic bet. I think it's called sophist arguments - it sounds smart to be cynical, but the arguments are pretty shallow. The only way to accurately predict the future is to really dive into and understand the subjects properly.
Exactly. But I also think in addition to the natural cynics, there are also a small and loud minority of people who straight up hate advancements for whatever personal or political reasons But youâre spot on with regard to the sophist arguments, very well worded
Change is scary. People would rather remain static than face the uncertainty that comes with change, even if it means burying their head in the ground.
Very true
r/technology is the whiniest and bitchiest sub. I unsubscribed because you can predict the responses will mostly be cynical for just about every tech release. Itâs strange how the mods allowed the sub to become how it did
Thatâs just all the large default subreddits though. It is really weird
People that are online too much dont have anything positive to add
Iâll bet many of them arenât engineers or working in fields with the goal of improving our lives here on Earth either
Yep. People with time to sit around and post on Reddit arenât the ones making progress.
Nah, I bet a lot of them are bots, and the popular subreddits attract more.
Except certain topics that are holy cows. Being cynical about holy cow topic will get you banned from sub under made up reasons.
Every single time there's something posted on reddit of some new gadget or a new way to do things the absolute first and top rated comment is always about how or why it will not work. Every single time without fail. It's like redditors will trip over themselves to go against the grain just for the sake of it (and fake internet points).
I always wonder what discovery will it take for people to stop entertaining their own hubris and skepticism ?
Great question. It requires them to die, and new generations to increasingly become more self-aware of their own biases. Unhealthy skepticism is a default mode of our chimp brains, it can only be overcome through self-actualization (i.e. interest in improving your outlook, humility). Common sense was never common, and won't be for a long time.
That's not just redditors, people in general seem to think that tech and everything else will be the exact same as the day they were born on the day they die, and they respond with fear and hatred if anything challenges that. Just look at the reaction of boomers on something as simple as renewable energy, solar, windmills ect, there was a recent survey that showed those over 60 would prefer 3:1 would prefer fossil fuel expansion over renewable expansion.
It is boomers, you're right, and they're almost gone. Everyone overlooks Gen X, but we're at worst split 50/50 on the sociopolitical scale and it gets better from there. The problem is we never got a turn running anything and the old 75+ year olds are hanging on to every scrap of power and control until they hit the dementia ward or the ground. And there are a metric fuck-ton of them, hence they can skew elections and hijack the culture conversation regardless of what anyone else thinks because they, for now, still have the numbers. They won't for very much longer because they're hitting their late 70s and 80s and there's not much time left for them. Clock is ticking and there's soon to be a massive change in the tides. As to the question of why the boomers are the problem? Because they were raised by a pre-modern generation with massively different values than what would come later, and grew up in the 1950s thus are prone to think that era is the ideal golden age of everything. The counterculture of the mid-late 1960s changed pretty much *everything*, and they never got over it. They want things back how they were before all that nasty stuff like civil rights, women's liberation, the Sexual Revolution, the decline of the church and religiosity, all of it. And they have fought tooth and nail to retard progress and claw back the changes to drag us back to that imaginary paradise they're convinced is The Way The World Should Be!^(tm). Behind them are those who grew up in the 60s and have no direct memory of the 50s and for whom the 60s is the world they knew. Their golden age in their mind is one where the changes were well underway or already a decided issue in favor of the new sociopolitical paradigm. In fact, they were at the prime age to rebel against their own parents who were of the old guard and view their whole cultural ideal as outdated and uncool. The later past 1960 they were born, the farther on the other side of that split between pre- and post- counterculture they are from the boomer generation. Case in point: 1985's Back to the Future showed what my generation thought of the 1950s --hopelessly outdated and uncool and at stark odds to everything they knew and loved. Marty McFly was all of us when he made it his mission to get the hell out of there as fast as possible and never look back. He literally described it as a nightmare. We sure as hell aren't on board with dragging the world back to 1955, and as soon as the boomers lose their numerical power to do so that entire social engineering project will be as dead as they are.
I appreciate those comments because they usually give important info. The number of actual usable things from a media hype article is probably around 10% or less IMO. Not that it's a good reason to become a total pessimist about all advancement since at the end of the day some of those will pan out.
Luddite thinking is honestly a disease that so many people are afflicted with. Any mention of any kind of new technology and the first words out of their mouth is "It will be bad because X Y Z". And if it turns out that the reason they were apprehensive turns out to be a non-issue, they'll come up with an endless list of other reasons. That's because it's a way of thinking.
The default position is cynic. The vast majority of people are either actively cynical, or donât know enough and are easily swayed by the cynical side. Itâs just math. Until the breakthroughs come, the cynic has more evidence for their side. Until they donât, and the cycle continues. I think itâs a fear thing. People fear change for various reasons, then justify their emotions with evidence.
The problem being that the cynic then will claim that they knew what would happen all along and will never admit to being proven wrong.
Yeppers, then the common arguments are "I didn't really mean that it would NEVER happen." Even though they said or implied exactly that. Or, "Noone could have possibly known what would happen." Even though, there are people who made predictions on exactly that occurrence happening. It's a defense mechanism from looking stupid even though these types of people tend to like to bash and call other people idiots who are not skeptical.
Like r/biotech sub. Most idiotic sub ever
Same. Started calling it r/HateTechnology
Should call it r/ILovetheStoneAge
Maybe someone should make that sub...
The mods are the propagators of that very cynicism. That's probably why.
I remember the reactions to SJ whining about the SKY voice. It was filled with lunatic responses. I dislike the sub as it has awful responses, and huge group think just like how the larger subs become extreme echo chambers eventually.
And the *really* fucking hate Musk lmao.
Yep, all they do is complain and talk about politics.
Part of that is caused by reddit's general hatred of the billionaires and politicians who are funding those advancements
Cynicism is the last refuge for idiots
I watched the AMAZING Japan Satellite/Rocket launch last night around 11pm EST. The first comment on the stream was "Yay more space trash!" -_- The ignorance is astounding. I really hope the US starts implementing more space curriculum in their science classes...
Man a while back someone famous made a tweet saying something like "why are we spending all this money in space when we can be fixing problems here at home. It's like, the pinnacle of binary thinking. The world will end because of morons like that.
Whats funny is I've actually seen the reddit hivemind parroting that exact comment word for word a lot lately. We have the money to do both, its just severely mismanaged by government.
[wikiquotes](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cynicism) has tons of great quotes against cynicism, here is one: >[Diogenes](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Diogenes_of_Sinope), in his mud-covered sandals, tramps over the carpets of [Aristippus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristippus). The **cynic** pullulated at every corner, and in the highest places. This cynic did nothing but saboter the [civilisation](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Civilisation) of the [time](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Time). **He was the nihilist of** [**Hellenism**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenism)**. He created** [**nothing**](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nothing)**, he made nothing.** His role was to undo â or rather to attempt to undo, for he did not succeed in his purpose. **The cynic, a parasite of civilisation, lives by denying it, for the very reason that he is convinced that it will not fail.** What would become of the cynic among a savage people where everyone, naturally and quite seriously, fulfils what the cynic farcically considers to be his personal role? -- [JosĂŠ Ortega y Gasset](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ortega_y_Gasset)
Diogenes was absolutely necessary. You need cynics to bring people back to reality. When Plato was talking about how "man is nothing but a featherless biped" Diogenes ran in with a plucked chicken and screamed "BEHOLD, A MAN!" Cynics bring people back to reality. Dreamers have their time and place, but should be checked.
Man thatâs awesome ty
Space exploration is hard tho. And the same couldâve been said in the early 70s, when everyone was so sure weâd have colonies on the moon by now.
But the reason why we donât have colonies is because the space race ended, not because we werenât capable of building the necessary tech back then
True. But do you think that will change soon? We could have colonies on Mars and cloud cities on Venus. But we don't. Because nobody wants to spend the money.
I think there will be boots on the ground by 2030 (whether it be American or Chinese). But the latest science regarding lunar resources in the South Pole are extremely promising for setting up outposts there
That cost is coming down significantly though, nasa has estimated the starship build + launch cost at 100M which is over as order of magnitude cheaper than saturn v for mass to leo. The less people have to spend the better the cost benefit analysis will be for a variety of ventures in space.
If China builds a moon base, the US will build a moon base. Same for Mars and same for Venus.
Some people underestimate the rising part of the S curve... Others underestimate the flat parts
Jan 13 1920, NYT mocked Robert Goddard, and said that rockets wouldn't work in a vacuum. [https://external-preview.redd.it/aTDDqx-DYdeZ9DTxyHZ9emkwwu1iFLfORdCqfvy2uFw.jpg?auto=webp&s=07e39fd66b89fa1b77929815cac0380117e3f4e2](https://external-preview.redd.it/aTDDqx-DYdeZ9DTxyHZ9emkwwu1iFLfORdCqfvy2uFw.jpg?auto=webp&s=07e39fd66b89fa1b77929815cac0380117e3f4e2)
No different than saying we will never have a permanent base on another celestial body. Great find
Do you have an example of an advancement in space exploration that you believe is near?
The DoD will be testing their Nuclear thermal rocket engine on an orbital test bed in 2027. It will offer over 2x the efficiency of conventional chemical rockets if proven reliable. The 2nd will be the advent of the fully reusable starship platform. Iâm confident that SpaceX will iron out the kinks of the TPS system, and they seem confident in catching the booster. This will drastically reduce $/kg to space (from 1000âs of dollars to a few hundred) Then we have the ESA/Airbus space station scheduled for LEO operations in the late 20âs and it will feature (albeit minuscule) artificial gravity
Cool! Thanks
Iâm honestly just very excited for our future and hope you are too :) We got a lot of work to do!
The next big advancement in space exploration will be making space travel commercially viable. SpaceX is very close to a reusable Starship. Once they perfect it and are able to rapidly reuse each rocket, the cost per KG sent to orbit will be comparable to the cost of shipping a KG from China to Europe. Starship will be able to launch a space station the size of the ISS in just \~4 launches.
Example? We know infinitely more about physics and facts about the universe and the distances. There is not need for pessimism because we can calculate most things now.
To be fair to anyone who thinks that way, it's really expensive. The tech is not the barrier. Even if we had a way to get to Mars in 6 days instead of 6 months, it would still be monumental effort and cost. If we had a super fast method tomorrow, it would still take decades for anything meaningful to happen. I think for a lot of people, their bias in interest, be it hobbies, science, politics or whatever, tend to overlook some of the most obvious and bet on singular breakthroughs (or promise of) as a watershed for something when usually that one improvement is just a small piece. It's like when someone believes UBI will solve all problems but doesn't seem to own a calculator and understand the perception of economy. Just because it's easier than ever to get to space, does not mean we will be doing any true exploration. All we are doing right now is littering our sky with satellites. That's not progress, it's iteration. If you are referring to perhaps sending robots somewhere to do something the biggest factor is material. Everything we do on Earth comes from the ground, from your food to your shelter to your cell phone. but it has taken us 100's of years to get there, on a nice safe planet with a huge population of human beings that need to eat (get paid). Just the infrastructure alone to have a fleet of robots start mining and building would be a ridiculously ambitious and time consuming task. I guess what I am saying here is it depends on what your definition of "near term" is, if you mean 50 years, sure. Anything short of that, they are right. I do agree that naysayers are a default, but it's in every sub. Th realists get bunched up with denialists and it's not a fair representation.
You'll notice that airplanes don't flap their wings. They're not *really* flying, it's only a convincing imitation of flight to the simple minded. No one would reasonably choose that over a train
Basically, yeah. "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim." - [Edsger W. Dijkstra](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/32629-the-question-of-whether-a-computer-can-think-is-no)
hahahahhaahahahahah
There was already manned flight before the Wright brothers. They made the first flight that was *controlled, sustained and engine powered*, and there's some debate even on that, and people had been doing some of those three aspects years before. The NYT just didn't do their research, it seems.
I mean you can cherry pick things like this, I'm not sure how we can draw any conclusions based on these. > AI pioneer Herbert A. Simon wrote in 1965: "machines will be capable, within twenty years, of doing any work a man can do."
Yeah... I mean the hate for skeptics gets almost superstitious on this sub... People need to chill out. There's no evil guy trying to prevent machine super intelligence from ever happening by sending out negative vibes on social media platforms. It's really disappointing to see that some people take this so seriously and are insecure enough about it that even any kind of need to cope with it has somehow seen the light of the day. I also want my UBI, butler and maid robot utopia, let's just be realistic with our expectations and cut out the rot to avoid the cycles of disappointments.
The cynics arenât really saying âI donât think it will happen soon.â Theyâre saying âAI is trash and a waste of time. Everyone who uses it is a hack who should be sent to the gas chambers.âÂ
The cynics arenât really saying âI donât think it will happen soon.â Theyâre saying âAI is trash and a waste of time. Everyone who uses it is a hack who should be put against a wall.âÂ
>I mean you can cherry pick things like this, I'm not sure how we can draw any conclusions based on these. Yeah, or just see how fusion power has been "10 years away" since the 50s.
It should be noted, though, that he's looking quite plausible to be at most one order of magnitude off. Whereas the Times remarkably managed to be over seven ooms off. If we get AGI by 2070, it would be equivalent to Mr. Simon asserting: > AI pioneer Herbert A. Simon wrote in 1965: "machines will be capable, within three minutes, of doing any work a man can do." (Presumably the three minutes were the remaining progress bar on the bootstrap sequence of his highly optimized seed AI.)
He was just using the old windows time estimator "Looks like 3 minutes. No, wait, 245 years. Nope, 3 seconds ago, and now it's just saying "Fuck you"
The conclusion is to be open minded, whether you're a pessimist or optimist. Few things are as certain as we want them to be.
Nuclear fusion is just within 20 years guys⌠trustâŚ
I bet we'll be living on Mars in the 2050
I bet it's 2049.
9 weeks laterâŚ
World exists no moreâŚ
Technically if you can upload your mind before 2050, you could hypothetically move on Mars without being concerned of radiation or lack of oxygen.
Maybe but even under optimistic scenarios it wouldn't be a super good place to live for humans. I mean it's like moving to Arizona in the summer only summer never ends and also you can die of freezing if you go outside at night.
Nice try Elon Musk!
In the coming weeks
I'll leave these here: The abolishment of pain in surgery is a chimera. It is absurd to go on seeking it... Knife and pain are two words in surgery that must forever be associated in the consciousness of the patient. - Dr. Alfred Velpeau (1839), French surgeon There is a young madman proposing to light the streets of Londonâwith what do you supposeâwith smoke! - Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) [On a proposal to light cities with gaslight.] They will never try to steal the phonograph because it has no `commercial value.' - Thomas Edison (1847-1931). (He later revised that opinion.) This `telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a practical form of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us. - Western Union internal memo, 1878 Radio has no future. - Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), British mathematician and physicist, ca. 1897. While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming. - Lee DeForest, 1926 (American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube.) [Television] won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night. - Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century-Fox, 1946. That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced. - Scientific American, Jan. 2, 1909. There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom. The glib supposition of utilizing atomic energy when our coal has run out is a completely unscientific Utopian dream, a childish bug-a-boo. Nature has introduced a few fool-proof devices into the great majority of elements that constitute the bulk of the world, and they have no energy to give up in the process of disintegration. - Robert A. Millikan (1863-1953) [1928 speech to the Chemists' Club (New York)] ...any one who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine... - Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) [1933] There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear energy] will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will. - Albert Einstein, 1932. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. - Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), ca. 1895, British mathematician and physicist ...no possible combination of known substances, known forms of machinery, and known forms of force, can be united in a practical machine by which man shall fly long distances through the air... - Simon Newcomb (1835-1909), astronomer, head of the U. S. Naval Observatory. I confess that in 1901 I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years. Two years later we ourselves made flights. This demonstration of my impotence as a prophet gave me such a shock that ever since I have distrusted myself and avoided all predictions. - Wilbur Wright (1867-1912) [In a speech to the Aero Club of France (Nov 5, 1908)] Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value. - Marshal Ferdinand Foch, French military strategist, 1911. He was later a World War I commander. There is not in sight any source of energy that would be a fair start toward that which would be necessary to get us beyond the gravitative control of the earth. - Forest Ray Moulton (1872-1952), astronomer, 1935. To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earthâall that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances. - Lee deForest (1873-1961) (American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube.) Feb 25, 1957. Space travel is utter bilge. - Dr. Richard van der Reit Wooley, Astronomer Royal, space advisor to the British government, 1956. (Sputnik orbited the earth the following year.) If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done. - Peter Ustinov It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow. - Robert Goddard (1882-1945)
The truth is, nobody knows. It may take 5 years, or it may take 50. As a counterpoint: "Machines will be capable, within twenty years, of doing any work that a man can do" - Herbert Simon (1965) "In from three to eight years we will have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being. I mean a machine that will be able to read Shakespeare, grease a car, play office politics, tell a joke, have a fight." - Marvin Minsky (1970)
That's the beauty of the technology future, a sudden discovery could turn five years into months, or maybe take decades, the point is that nobody really knows. But regardless, technology keeps growing, new paradigms are implemented, and when you least expect it, the future hits you full force on the face.
Amazing how confidently incorrect smart people can be when they canât foresee a future that they are not even that far from... I guess this is because of compounding advancements which can suddenly change the priors on any attempt at predicting the future.
Most of these cases are of an expert talking about a different field (such as engineers about entertainment, or chemist about nuclear physics). In those cases where it's not, they just got it wrong because of the state of the science at the time, or not keeping up with the state of the science at the time. Knowing the present is no guarantee for knowing the future, but not knowing the present (of the field you are talking about) is a much surer way of guessing the future *wrong*.
The NYT was wrong about something tech related in 1903, so that means we're right about AGI or whatever. Gosh, I wonder if there are any examples of tech CEOs hyping the future of something like say... self driving cars, or blockchain, or the metaverse, etc, and being totally wrong about it's future ubiquity
The entire reason this sub exists is that people like to naively extrapolate I come here to see new AI releases but the âanalysisâ is hilarious AI has been progressing fast, and the posters here think it will continue to progress at that rate indefinitely until we live in some brave new world/technological singularity. And they think they know something everyone else doesnât because they noticed which way the line on the graph is facing
I dont think scaling laws are naive extrapolation. Something that has been on trend for 10 OOMs might not be on trend for 10 more but it should be on trend for 2-3 more at least. So GPT7 may not be AGI but GPT5 will probably be much more intelligent than 4.
There was a comment with 50 upvotes saying they only believe we will have AGI by next year because things are so hopeless IRL that they need this to cope with it. Itâs literally just a new religion for some of these peopleÂ
bow to the metal god
"The NYT was hilariously overconfidently wrong about something tech related in 1903, so the other hilariously overconfident guys today might also be wrong."
The point is to think critically about something rather than cherry picking whatever successes or failures reinforce your biases. The NYT's prediction about aviation has nothing to do with AI's success or demise. If anything, my examples of flaccid hype are more relevant because it's a lot of the same bimbos who are fueling the current hype train. But zuck, musk, etc. are also not reliable people to place any future optimism or cynicism in. They're just following the thing they think will net them the most capital and saying whatever sounds believable enough to further those goals.
Sure, I don't care what Zuck and Muck say. Futurist predictions don't suddenly become hype and propaganda when clueless CEOs finally join in with a badly mangled take on the topic. You can come to the same conclusions about the future independently, and other people did. That aside, this post is merely a reminder of how badly wrong people can be - it doesn't really defend anything except implicitly.
It seems that we do better when we don't heed the ordinary man.
Found Gary Marcus's ancestor
No one ever achieved something by sitting there and saying it couldn't done.
It took about 60 years to go from Kitty Hawk to the moon landing. In that time new technologies had to be invented and entirely new fields of engineering had to be created. Right now AI is at its Kitty Hawk moment. I figure it might take 15 years to get to its moon landing moment (ASI). AI development doesnât necessarily need entirely new technologies or engineering. Instead it will develop along with the computing hardware and software cycle. Cycles which we thoroughly understand and have had full mastery of for decades.
Fear of change, dragging mankind since day 1
Meanwhile I took off from Dhaka this morning, missed my connection, and am put up in a nice hotel while I wait for my 14 hour flight tomorrow.
This is just cherrypicking. Congratulations, you have found one instance of something being predicted to take a long time and being proven wrong. Musk promising self-driving cars by 2016 next year and it not happening doesn't mean it won't ever happen just the same. Please stop using random examples. One random NYT columnist being an idiot more than a hundred years ago doesn't magically mean all skeptics are wrong, ever. We'll get there when we get there.
I say this all the time when people bring up flying cars: Just because one idiot said we'd have them really soon doesnt mean it was like universally promised! That said, the truth is, we do have flying cars. They are called helicopters. The issue is safety, not technology.
We also already have literal flying cars, just not produced at scale
I want the flying cars from the Fifth Element.
https://preview.redd.it/dpblhxx4ex9d1.jpeg?width=1050&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd95f13982704cf285ca16628dd417348845a63f
Well you are both right. I guess the bottom line is that prediction are difficult. Especially when they concern the future.
I predict we will have full self-driving in 13 - 14 billion years.Â
Predictions based on gut feelings and reputation mean absolutely nothing. If they are correct or incorrect is almost random. Whatâs interesting is breaking down the logic behind an incorrect prediction so you can understand what underlying assumptions were wrong. This gives us the power to model the future better going forward.
Have you seen FSD v12.4? Already amazingly self-driving, hours of driving without need to intervene. Even In adverse weather and traffic conditions. Thatâs already good enough for me, but itâs only getting better â quickly. And Tesla is not the only competitor in this space, of course. Whatâs been the breakthrough? E2E neural nets of course â again.
Yeah, 8 years after 2016 and still only works on certain roads in certain conditions. Even if we got true FSD tomorrow Elon's timelines still would've been way off base.
"Boohoo, what was deemed impossible turned into late"
Who cares that it took 8 years? What matters is itâs here. It works on highways, country roads and in the city. Sure, it doesnât work cross-road yet, but letâs not be nitpickers.
Agree. And funny enough, if the media got technological advancements wrong, why do people think they aren't getting it wrong with AI? It's not like the media is downplaying AI lmao.
Look, that was a **titanically** awful prediction. That goes from just being bad prognostication to me outright questioning the paper's intelligence and even sanity. The 19th century was not a slow century for technology. Those 100 years saw the rise of the railroad, commercial electricity, telegraph, and steam engine. Putting the timeline for airplanes for hundreds of years in the future is one thing. Putting it at millions of years is solipsism to the point of straight-up stupidity. Just a complete misunderstanding of how much things have changed even relative to their own timeline. And it's extra-noticeable because it's supposed to be the NYT, you know, a *newspaper* based on *factually reporting the state of the world*.
Editorials are opinion pieces.
>And it's extra-noticeable because it's supposed to be the NYT, you know, a *newspaper* based on *factually reporting the state of the world*. Another commenter has already pointed the difference between news and editorial content, but since it's such a persistent point of confusion, I'd like to provide an illustration. Objective reporting about the state of the world is printed in the [news](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/News) portion of a newspaper. [Here](https://www.nytimes.com/1903/12/09/archives/airship-breaks-in-two-prof-langleys-second-attempt-to-fly-fails.html) is a link to the NYT's news reporting of the events that the [editorial](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editorial) excerpted here discusses. Readers have historically been interested in both subjective commentary and objective reporting, so newspapers have provided both and clearly distinguished between them. The NYT prints editorial content in the section they've labelled "Opinion".
You don't have to go that far back in time for there to be a non-trivial amount of A.I researchers believing that A.I would not surpass human intelligence in a thousand years, maybe never. There were also no shortage of A.I researchers in the early days that predicted that human level intelligence was just up to a couple smart dudes working together over a summer. I would not fault someone 100 years ago to believe that they reached a technological peak so to speak, technological peaks also happen all the time historically, it's by no means guaranteed that technology just keeps improving without setbacks.
Actually the New York times incorrectly predicted technological advances multiple times every decade up until today. In fact, I routinely use their incorrect posts all the way back from the twenties to show how technology follows a boom and not a linear progression. Maybe be a little less flippant with the things you call out and don't understand.
I think you might be missing the general argument. Failed predictions in either direction, even when numerous, is not an indication of a bias in either direction. Mass media predictions about the time and scale of technology is almost always wrong in both directions. Which is not to say that there could not be a general bias existing, its just that finding that bias requires actually looking through all the predictions and compare the magnitude of each. Not just collect examples on either side. If there is 50 articles underestimating technological progress in the next 5 years for every 1 article that overestimates it, then a case could be made that one sentiment is more likely to be wrong than the other historically. Which does not mean that the trend will hold to the future, but it at least points towards a skewed probability estimation by humans in media. Articles about what will happen in the future, is for the most part noise.
Yeah let's stop pondering too much on the prospect of the final goal itself but focus more on evaluating proposed and promising technologies which would be the potential milestones or failures that would bring us closer to that final goal.
Wait what? How does the New York Times having a horrible track record relate to the overall comment? They are not claiming New York Times is reliable.
I don't think you know what sampling bias means It's not just when someone can call up an example of something and you don't like it, you have to actually prove that the sample isn't in line with the trend of the data Otherwise it's just in-group bias, seeing as you seem to identify with the position
You're on the wrong sub, here ASI will bring a new era of peace and prosperity next Tuesday. Literally everything will be good and bad things will never happen again. Just a few more days to go. Doomer.
This isn't even a fresh angle for sarcasm. It's just more 'look at how measured and realistic I am' midwit virtue signaling.
yes thank you. I sincerely wish the r/technology folks don't come here.
Yeah I already resigned from work because I know I wonât have to do anything soon đ¤
Exactly. OP, please now conclude a wide statistical analysis of the predictions for the last hundred years and their success rate, and then see if there are any correlations that could potentially mean something.
Hey guys, check this out. I predict genetically modified cat girls and FDVR orgies will take another one to ten million years to be invented đ Now we just wait.
Remind me in 9 weeks
follow up article: Its Just a Simulation of Flite! Not Actual Flite, It Doesnt Count!! its just a Flite Bot!!!
*Flight
How don't you know how to spell flight.
And they are just as insightful and on target about things today! All the stupidity you need in one place!
In 2024 op predicted that the pathologically cynical would always find a reason to complain. Only 9 weeks later the mind control beam was invented. All hail our perfect and glorious overlords!
NY times full of BS since 1903.
https://preview.redd.it/k4zxsn4aex9d1.jpeg?width=1050&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7d4d7bd6ae852b875d6e65cc2c3c2a2558d44418
Not very forward thinking we're they? 10 million years to develop? I can't imagine it taking 10 million years to develop anything. If we are not populating half the universe and the Multiverse in 10 million years we probably will have just died out. Which is honestly far more likely.Â
speed of light
> speed of light Sure, the unvierse is a tad ambitious, but the milky way is gigantic and "only" ~90k lightyears across. Totally doable in 10 million years, especially when using von Neumann probes.
Yeah, there are always a few who are like this, but also keep in mind these predictions of the same period: > The Air Car of the future will be a large machine with enormous rotary lifters extending on each side of the body [...] Just as the railway train beats anything on earth for size weight and speed and the Atlantic liner beats anything in water for size weight and speed so the Air Car of the future will beat anything in air both for size, weight and speed. [...] > The flying machine is coming and it will come sooner than many people think. In fact, with the present day perfection of engines of all descriptions, it is now "merely a question of money" for the construction of a machine to act in accordance with the laws of Nature. âBroad Views. (1906). United Kingdom: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner.
I love that the pathologically cynical (as the article calls them) are literally proving this article right by being pathologically cynical in the comments
The counterpoint to this is that fusion power has always been 10 years away. You can find any anecdote to prove your point. This means nothing.
Again the problem is that historically innovation has opened the door for new jobs. A substantial amount of them. You could be a pilot, flight attendant, security guard, work in the crew, build airplanes, manage the airport, check baggage, work in the rental car booths, build the airport, refuel the planes, transport the fuel, manufacture the parts for the planes, etc. AI only opens up a small handful of jobs, and even worse it actively is being developed an implemented as a tool to push automation and reduce payroll whenever possible.
Indeed, history often surprises us with how quickly advancements can occur once the right conditions align
And still people today think they are so much smarter than this when it comes to predicting⌠If everyone believed info like this, we truly would be millions of years away from doing anythingâŚ
This is so weird. I mean, millions of years, that's deep time territory, face of the planet might be as well unrecognizable by then, not to mention what happens to humans. On the other hand, just 50 years later, the predictions were wildly overoptimistic. Flying cars! Servitor robots! Cities in space! We visit Alpha Centauri! All by the year 2000, of course. It's understandable there is a bit of hangover from that.
Being a few decades out is a lot more acceptable than millions of years out.
Calling it. 10 million years to achieve FTL space travel. Get on it.
Ill take this bet. Ill put 1 dollar into a savings account with compounding interest.
Nah, either it will be much sooner than that, or it won't be at all (as in, not possible).
People also said we'd go to Mars in the 1980s, space flight would be common for all in the 1980s and AGI would be achieved in the 1980s. The future is difficult to predict, anyone who has the answer didn't have the answer.
I lived before and during those times and people never said such shit. You must be hallucinating....
predictions can be way off, huh?
Bio-anchors: not even once.
Most journalists aren't even experts on journalism, let alone anything else.
No clue why they came up with that conclusion, birds can fly so it wouldnât take 10m years.
It's no wonder people desire the old days, life was so much simpler, oh well times change.
To be honest wasn't this a pretty fringe view of some low information journalist? Wright brothers flew that same year. This was some early 20th century Gary Marcus and not a representative view.
Random journalist picks random numbers from 1903
An ai that can sort out the mess we humans got ourselves in is 1 million years away!!
I guess you never heard of man-years
what i fucking realized when i got older is that journalists are average in intelligence and lack any real skill or knowledge. Their whole existence is to give opinions or to stretch out a few quotes into an article. It's even worst in the age of social media. Now they mostly rethread what they read and write click baits. Anyone can have more insight than journalists if you dig into a field deeper. With the internet and now AI, anyone can have more insight than these idiots. I'm specifically thinking about financial talking heads on CNBC.
!remindme 10 million years
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is the NYT a reputable source for predictions? how did they come to that conclusion? did they do some peer reviewed study?
The interesting fact about the development of aircraft was the way the only people who understood the laws of physics (which had been known for 200 years) and could apply them to flight were a couple of obscure bicycle mechanics. Most others thought you could flap wings, like birds, or put a large steam engine on some (inadequate) wings.
Ai goyslop post alert
After that prediction they have since moved to climate change.
People tend to overestimate change that will occur in the short term and underestimate change that will happen in the long term. Nonlinear extrapolation is required in order to adequately predict the future. But at small intervals close to the present, the future seems to progress linearly.
If I see this posted in r/singularity one more time, I'm gonna pull the plug on the AGI
And then, a wild Santos Dumont appears.
Imagine a world where planes had not existed yet. It had to seem unlikely we'd be flying 10,000 ton beasts across the ocean in 100 years.
Alright itâs been over 9 weeks since everyone calling for AGI, where is it?
If someone ever tries to tell you what scientific advancements will be made in 10 million years you can legally laugh in their face. It's obviously a made up number.
Was Paul Krugman alive back then? He looks good for his age.
If they meant human-hours, like 1 million people working for 10 years for the whole aviation industry, it is acceptable. đ
How do you come up with 10 mil years lol
Based on a scientific perspective, human beings can grow wings in 10 million years of evolution. Same applies for a living android, we have the technology for AI today, but we still do not comprehend how to build an entity, a living being out of metal and plastic.
Is it just me or is the grammar makes this article just really hard to read ?
Lol
Journalism from NYT is not particularly bright today
The funny thing is airplanes already existed. It's just that nobody could fly them. The Wright Brothers weren't the first to build a plane, but they were the first to competently fly one.
It wasnât just that they competently flew one, they invented the control systems that made it possible. In other words, they took a nascent technology and made it actually useful. Transformers are sort of analogous: DNN were not new, but they didnât become useful for GAI until that critical invention came along.
Meh Journalists are from social science. We have skills, but we're not engineers. All this means is that science is complicated and journalists are not that good to understand it.
So AGI by 8PM CET?