Ajeya Cotra

If all of Kotra's non-Moore's Law parameter estimates had been correct, her model would have given about the same timelines we have now, and surprised everyone with a revolutionary claim about the AI future.

But Nostalgia Braced added, almost as an aside, quote,

So depending on how much you trust that forecast, you might want to take all of these numbers with an even bigger grain of salt than you'd expected from everything else we've seen.

How much should you trust Kotra's algorithmic progress forecast?

She writes, quote, I've done very little research into algorithmic progress trends.

Of the four main components of my model, 2020 compute requirements, algorithmic progress, compute price trends, and spending on computation, I've spent the least time thinking about algorithmic progress, end quote.

and bases the forecast on one paper about ImageNet classifiers.

I want to be clear that when I quote these parts about Kotra not spending much time on something, I'm not trying to make fun of her.

It's good to be transparent about this kind of thing.

I wish more people would do that.

My complaint is not that she tells us what she spent time on, it's that she spent time on the wrong things."

Scott writes, He gave algorithmic progress as a secondary example of this to shore up his Moore's Law case, but in fact it turned out to be where all the action was.

5.

Those were the rare good critiques.

The bad critiques were the same ones everyone in this space gets.

You're just trying to build hype.

You're just trying to scare people.

You use probabilities, but probabilities are meaningless and just cover up that you don't really know.

AI forecasts are just attempts for people to push AGI back to some time when it can't be checked.

AI forecasts are just attempts for people to pull AGI forward to when it means they personally will live forever.