It has been 20 years since the last technological revolution - the internet. Now with AI, it was just 2 years ago that the first GPT was announced. And we can see the how fast that has grown 2 years after with GPT-4o. And it will get even faster from here.
Tim Urban cited other authors and thinkers. I don't think it's his original thought.
But I remember reading this article when it first came out and it blew me away and changed my viewpoint on life, aliens, universe forever.