There are no good reasons to put a specific time period prediction on the arrival of AGI. You are essentially stating an article of religious faith without a clear scientific basis. "Surely I come quickly. Amen."
How much actual money have you bet on your prediction?
I think there are plenty of good reasons to put a time prediction on the arrival of AGI. Saying that it's just an article of religious faith is a pretty bad argument.
I think we'd both agree that we can definitely predict some things. We can put a reasoanble prediction on the economy in 10 years time, on weather, on e.g. processing speeds, etc.
I think we can also put some predictions on a bit more far-reaching advances. E.g. I think it's a reasonable prediction that in 50 years time, we'll have some form of energy that is in wide use and relatively clean, possibly using new technology. I don't know much about the energy space - maybe my prediction is terrible. But surely experts in the field have reasonable predictions, don't they?
So why, when it comes to AGI, do you think we are unable to make predictions? What's so special about that technology?
I could be completely wrong, but it seems to me like you might be ascribing more magic to AGI than I am, and therefore think predictions about it are stupid. I'm not thinking of AGI in religious terms or anything like that - I'm literally thinking things like "how long until an AI system kind of like Copilot can program as well as a human, for some value of programming? How about do other, harder tasks? Etc." And I'm assuming that if you extrapolate this out 50-100 years, you eventually get something with incredibly vast potential.
Well I wasn't making up the AI numbers, the experts who supposedly know something about this gave them. But some follow-up questions:
1. What is a valid technique for making long-term predictions?
2. Do you agree that in theory AGI can be built?
3. Given that some people worry that it has the potential to be harmful, do you think it's worth at least trying to think through when it will be built?
There are no experts on AGI. It's like being an "expert" on unicorns or leprechauns.
There are some experts on advanced statistical techniques which are often classified as AI. Those techniques have real practical value in narrow problem domains, but we have no idea whether any of those techniques will ever lead to a true AGI.
There are no valid techniques for making long-term predictions in poorly characterized, non-linear systems where we don't know what the goal looks like or how to get there. No, it's not worth trying to think through. Let me know when someone manages to build an AGI roughly equivalent to a lizard or mouse or whatever. If it ever becomes a real thing then we'll have plenty of time to think.
How much actual money have you bet on your prediction?