[tikkun]

As context on Ilya's predictions given in this talk, he predicted these in July 2017:

> Within the next three years, robotics should be completely solved [wrong, unsolved 7 years later], AI should solve a long-standing unproven theorem [wrong, unsolved 7 years later], programming competitions should be won consistently by AIs [wrong, not true 7 years later, seems close though], and there should be convincing chatbots (though no one should pass the Turing test) [correct, GPT-3 was released by then, and I think with a good prompt it was a convincing chatbot]. In as little as four years, each overnight experiment will feasibly use so much compute capacity that there’s an actual chance of waking up to AGI [didn't happen], given the right algorithm — and figuring out the algorithm will actually happen within 2–4 further years of experimenting with this compute in a competitive multiagent simulation [didn't happen].

Being exceptionally smart in one field doesn't make you exceptionally smart at making predictions about that field. Like AI models, human intelligence often doesn't generalize very well.

[padolsey]

>exceptionally smart at making predictions

Is anyone though? Genuine question. I don't have much faith in predictions anymore.

[qeternity]

No, very few for things with this much uncertainty.

Most of it is survivorship bias: if you have a million people all making predictions with coin flip accuracy, somebody is going to get a seemingly improbable number correct.

[ethbr1]

Predictions predicated on technological advancement are tricky: there's a reason breakthroughs are called breakthroughs.

[exe34]

so your prediction is that most predictions will be wrong?

[_giorgio_]

he just wanted money from investors, that's why he used such short limits

https://openai.com/index/elon-musk-wanted-an-openai-for-prof...

> 2/3/4 will ultimately require large amounts of capital. If we can secure the funding, we have a real chance at setting the initial conditions under which AGI is born.

[InkCanon]

For all the discussion about it, this is the simple answer. It's not an engineering or scientific prediction, it's a line from a pitch deck.

[sangnoir]

It is important to note the context: he it was in a private email to an investor with vested interests in those fields, and someone who is also prone to giving over-optimistic timelines ("Tobo-taxis will be here next year, for sure" since 2015)