[nancyminusone]

>You think an artificial intelligence would have less impact on the world than the steam engine?

Not op, but yes, 100%. Steam backs nearly all development of technology of the last 150+ years. Where do you think the power come from to make things? More than half of the world's power *still* runs on steam, as will many of the systems running AI.

If steam power never existed, not only would you not exist but there's a good chance the country you live in wouldn't either. If you don't believe the effect is large, go to the farthest uncontacted place on earth and take out a CO2 meter.

[jodrellblank]

> "If you don't believe the effect is large"

It's not that I "don't believe the effect is large", but the changes from pre-intelligence planet Earth to post-intelligence planet Earth are larger because they include the invention of steam, and literally everything else too: language, writing, irrigation, cities, trade, numbers, currency, mathematics, chemistry, engineering, nations, governments, supply chains, steam, etc.

An AGI that can solve the problems we think are solvable, but we can't solve, would be huge. Any sci-fi idea that isn't ruled out by the laws of physics, but that we haven't got the brains to solve, any breakthrough that we think should be there but we haven't found, any problem that requires too much time to learn, or too many parts to hold in one human mind, any coordination that is too big for one team, any funding problem, any scarcity problem, any disease or illness problem, any long timeframe problem, are all on the table as possibilities.