[frognumber]

I always consider different options when planning for the future, but I'll give the argument for exponential:

Progress has been exponential in the generic. We made approximately the same progress in the past 100 years as the prior 1000 as the prior 30,000, as the prior million, and so on, all the way back to multicellular life evolving over 2 billion years or so.

There's a question of the exponent, though. Living through that exponential growth circa 50AD felt at best linear, if not flat.

[FabHK]

So you concede that there's nothing special about AI versus earlier innovations?

[qwertylicious]

> Progress has been exponential in the generic.

Has it? Really?

Consider theoretical physics, which hasn't significantly advancement since the advent of general relativity and quantum theory.

Or neurology, where we continue to have only the most basic understanding of how the human mind actually works (let alone the origin of consciousness).

Heck, let's look at good ol' Moore's Law, which started off exponential but has slowed down dramatically.

It's said that an S curve always starts out looking exponential, and I'd argue in all of those cases we're seeing exactly that. There's no reason to assume technological progress in general, whether via human or artificial intelligence, is necessarily any different.

[frognumber]

I think you're talking about much shorter timelines than I am.

That's all noise.

[ileonichwiesz]

> We made approximately the same progress in the past 100 years as the prior 1000 as the prior 30,000

I hear this sort of argument all the time, but what is it even based on? There’s no clear definition of scientific and technological progress, much less something that’s measurable clearly enough to make claims like this.

As I understand it, the idea is simply “Ooo, look, it took ten thousand years to go from fire to wheel, but only a couple hundred to go from printing press to airplane!!!”, and I guess that’s true (at least if you have a very juvenile, Sid Meier’s Civilization-like understanding of what history even is) but it’s also nonsense to try and extrapolate actual numbers from it.

[thegrimmest]

Plotting the highest observable assembly index over time will yield an exponential curve starting from the beginning of the universe. This is the closest I’m aware of to a mathematical model quantifying the distinct impression that local complexity has been increasing exponentially.