“The case for multi-decade timelines [Linkpost]” by Sharmake

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) - A podcast by EA Forum Team

At the request of @Vasco Grilo🔸 in a post that I can't get out of drafts, here's the full linkpost.

Original post is below:

So this post is an argument that multi-decade timelines are reasonable, and the key cruxes that Ege Erdil has with most AI safety people who believe in short timelines are due to the following set of beliefs:

  1. Ege Erdil don't believe that trends exist that require AI to automate everything in only 2-3 years.
  2. Ege Erdil doesn't believe that the software-only singularity is likely to happen, and this is perhaps the most important crux he has with AI people like @Daniel Kokotajlo who believe that a software-only singularity is likely.
  3. Ege Erdil expects Moravec's paradox to bite hard once AI agents are made in a big way.

This is a pretty important crux, because if this is true, a lot more serial research agendas [...]

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Outline:

(04:06) Trend extrapolations don't point towards short timelines

(09:21) A software singularity is unlikely

(12:44) AI agents will need a lot of compute to automate all remote work

(18:21) Conclusion

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First published:
April 27th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/tTzztd2vuDj8Nt7jC/the-case-for-multi-decade-timelines-linkpost

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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