Most Important Century Series

Most Important Century Series

The "most important century" series of blog posts argues that the 21st century could be the most important century ever for humanity, via the development of advanced AI systems that could dramatically speed up scientific and technological advancement, getting us more quickly than most people imagine to a deeply unfamiliar future.

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See the highlights of the whole series, download a PDF, read on Kindle, or listen as audio on https://www.cold-takes.com/most-important-century/

Our wildly important era

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All Possible Views About Humanity's Future Are Wild argues that two simple observations - (a) it appears likely that we will eventually be able to spread throughout the galaxy, and (b) it doesn't seem any other life form has done that yet - are sufficient to make the case that we live in an incredibly important time. I illustrate this with a timeline of the galaxy.
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The Duplicator: Instant Cloning Would Make the World Economy Explode explains the basic mechanism by which "eventually" above could become "soon": the ability to "copy human minds" could lead to a productivity explosion. This is background for the next few pieces.
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Digital People Would Be An Even Bigger Deal discusses how achievable-seeming technology - in particular, mind uploading - could lead to unprecedented productivity, control of the environment, and more. The result could be a stable, galaxy-wide civilization that is deeply unfamiliar from today's vantage point.

Our century's potential for acceleration

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This Can't Go On

looks at economic growth and scientific advancement over the course of human history. Over the last few generations, growth has been pretty steady. But zooming out to a longer time frame, it seems that growth has greatly accelerated recently; is near its historical high point; and is faster than it can be for all that much longer (there aren't enough atoms in the galaxy to sustain this rate of growth for even another 10,000 years).

The times we live in are unusual and unstable. Rather than planning on more of the same, we should anticipate stagnation (growth and scientific advancement slowing down), explosion (further acceleration) or collapse.

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Forecasting Transformative AI, Part 1: What Kind of AI? introduces the possibility of AI systems that automate scientific and technological advancement, which could cause explosive productivity. I argue that such systems would be "transformative" in the sense of bringing us into a new, qualitatively unfamiliar future.
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Why AI alignment could be hard with modern deep learning goes into more detail on why advanced AI systems could be "misaligned", with potentially catastrophic consequences.

Forecasting transformative AI this century

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Forecasting transformative AI: what's the burden of proof? argues that we shouldn't have too high a "burden of proof" on believing that transformative AI could be developed this century, partly because our century is already special in many ways that you can see without detailed analysis of AI.
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Are we "trending toward" transformative AI? (How would we know?) discusses the basic structure of forecasting transformative AI, the problems with trying to forecast it based on trends in "AI impressiveness," and the state of AI researcher opinion on transformative AI timelines.
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Forecasting transformative AI: the "biological anchors" method in a nutshell

summarizes the biological anchors framework for forecasting AI. This framework is the main factor in my specific forecasts.

I am forecasting more than a 10% chance transformative AI will be developed within 15 years (by 2036); a ~50% chance it will be developed within 40 years (by 2060); and a ~2/3 chance it will be developed this century (by 2100).

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AI Timelines: Where the Arguments, and the "Experts," Stand

briefly summarizes the state of the arguments and addresses the question, "Where does expert opinion stand on all of this?"

  • The claims I'm making neither contradict a particular expert consensus, nor are supported by one (though most of the key reports I cite have had external expert review). They are, rather, claims about topics that simply have no "field" of experts devoted to studying them.
  • Some people might choose to ignore any claims that aren't actively supported by a robust expert consensus; but I don't think that is what we should be doing here.

Implications

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How to make the best of the most important century? discusses different, contrasting views of how to help the most important century go as well as possible for humanity - and lists "robustly helpful actions" that seem worth taking regardless.
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Call to Vigilance is in lieu of a "call to action" for the series. Given all the uncertainty we face, I don't think people should rush to "do something" and then move on. Instead, they should take whatever robustly good actions they can today, and otherwise put themselves in a better position to take important actions when the time comes.

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