Comment by philipkglass | Hacker News Reader

Comment by philipkglass | Hacker News Reader

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I believe that AGI cannot be exponential for long because any intelligent agent can only approach nature's limits asymptotically. The first company with AGI will be about as much ahead as, say, the first company with electrical generators [1]. A lot of science fiction about a technological singularity assumes that AGI will discover and apply new physics to develop currently-believed-impossible inventions, but I don't consider that plausible myself. I believe that the discovery of new physics will be intellectually satisfying but generally inapplicable to industry, much like how solving the cosmological lithium problem will be career-defining for whoever does it but won't have any application to lithium batteries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_lithium_problem

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens#1847_to_1901

I don't recall editing my message, but HN can be wonky sometimes. :)

Nothing is truly exponential for long, but the logistic curve could be big enough to do almost anything if you get imaginative. Without new physics, there are still some places where we can do some amazing things with the equivalent of several trillion dollars of applied R&D, which AGI gets you.

I had to edit my message just now because I was actually unsure if you edited. Sorry for any miscommunication.

This depends on what a hypothetical 'AGI' actually costs. If a real AGI is achieved, but it costs more per unit of work than a human does... it won't do anyone much good.

Sure but think of the Higgs... how long that took for just _one_ particle. You think an AGI, or even an ASI is going to make an experimental effort like that go any bit faster? Dream on!

It astounds me that people dont realize how much of this cutting edge science stuff literally does NOT happen overnight, and not even close to that; typically it takes on the order of decades!

Science takes decades, but there are many places where we could have more amazing things if we spent 10 times as much on applied R&D and manufacturing. It wouldn't happen overnight, but it will be transformative if people can get access to much more automated R&D. We've seen a proliferation in makers over the last few decades as access to information is easier, and with better tools individuals will be able to do even more.

My point being that even if Science ends today, we still have a lot more engineering we can benefit from.

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