That comment specifically addresses the timeline, but you can remove the timeline and I believe the critique still holds up. Wake me up when AI is making order of magnitude improvements in _anything_ physical: see the "Moravec's Paradox" comment at the bottom.
> near autonomous AI companies today
That's the thing though. "near" autonomous. Humans have alpha, and that matters in a free market. If people have (more or less) equal access to (more or less) frontier intelligence, it's the alpha the individual brings to the market that is rewarded. In other words, if everyone is super, no one is. The market rewards a company that stands out from the rest, and as long as humans provide value, a pure-AI company cannot stand out.
To be clear, I don't know how long this will be the case. But once there _is_ a company that can be pure AI, then that's literal AGI. I would be curious what kind of company it would be; if its in software, then its an AI company that would be able to take on Microsoft/Google/Nvidia/Salesforce/Oracle and _win_. I think that's a tall order, but perhaps I'm not imaginative enough.
> With 99%+ of the economy under AI control
Do you think we're post-RSI at this point? Because if so, I agree. If not, I have trouble seeing how AI could control 99% of the economy without it.
My only claim is that pre-RSI, pdoom is zero. Post RSI, then obviously the first thing to ask the genie is to put itself in a bottle. And you can't predict how it will answer.