How AI timelines are estimated
AI Impacts, 2015
Abstract
Estimating the timeline for the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI) is a complex endeavor, fraught with uncertainty. A common approach is to extrapolate from hardware trends, positing that AGI will emerge when computing power reaches a level comparable to the human brain. However, this approach overlooks the crucial role of software and the possibility that the relationship between hardware and software is not linear. The article examines the case of Go, a complex game where a weak algorithm can achieve competitive performance with significantly more hardware than a strong algorithm. This suggests that AGI could be achieved with either much more or much less hardware than the human brain, depending on the sophistication of software development. Further research is necessary to understand the precise nature of the hardware-software frontier and its implications for the timeline of AGI development. – AI-generated abstract.
