I am very pro-AI, and interested in accelerating AI research, but the idea of deliberately creating a _runaway_ effect seems profoundly stupid and ignorant.

I suspect that part of the reason some people are hoping for that to happen is that they thoroughly mix up AGI and ASI. We do not need some kind of omnipotent god-like super intelligence in order to get much greater than human level capabilities. We are actually almost there in a lot of ways. In some aspects like speed and breadth of knowledge, very superhuman.

What I think is going to happen is that within a few years, maybe 18 months to 5 years, the new materials and compute-in-memory research is going to land in data centers at scale.

That is going to be 10-50+ larger models, 10-50+ faster, much smarter than humans. 50+ less electricity usage.

At some point, it is going to be obvious to people that if we want to maintain control of planet earth then we need to maintain control of AI research to some degree.

Assuming that superintelligence will be benevolent and just.. going for it to me is something that might earn the human species a Darwin award.