AI 2040: Plan A • Hacker News Board

Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#331

Post by JumpCrisscross » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 12:52 PM UTC

threetonesun wrote: post #327

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not believing that AGI is possible One can simultaneously believe AGI is possible, be only modestly sceptical that our current methods are likely to yield it in the near term and still find the religious ferocity enveloping its discussion silly. > saying that the human brain cognitive capabilities cannot be reproduced on other types of substrates is stupid at this point Straw man. Nobody argued this. The discussion…

I put it in the same bucket as living on Mars. Can it be done? Probably. Are we close? Not as close as people seem to want to believe. Is it a goal that will largely benefit society in its current form? Absolutely not.

Eh, with Martian habitation we know what the roadmap looks like. With AGI we don’t. It could be proximate. Or it might not be. When it arrives, it could be totally economically uncompetitive outside the rich world. Or it could replace all human labour. Or progress to become a superintelligence.

We don’t know. Which makes proposing rules around it based on fiction more than science silly.

Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#332

Post by edouard-harris » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 12:57 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #311

reasonableklout wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is commoditisation of models incompatible with AGI?

> How is commoditisation of models incompatible with AGI? A recursively self-improving AI has strong first-mover effects. That isn’t fundamentally incompatible with commoditisation if there is literally only one path to super-intelligence and you can have AIs at different rings on that ladder co-existing. (Not technically commoditised at that point. There are still different rings. But close enough.) But the existenc…

> But the existence of commoditised AI implies model selection isn’t a huge deal, which in turn implies the models are about the same, which strongly implies there is no recursive self-improvement. Depending on your definition, you may still have AGI. But you don’t have superintelligence.

This is only true at a given AI capability level, no? e.g., if AI at the GLM-5.2 level is commoditized, all that suggests is that there's no recursive self-improvement easily possible at the capability level of GLM-5.2. (And with the harnesses for it that exist so far, etc etc.)

If I observe commoditization of a given tier of model capabilities at a given point in time, this seems to say little about what's possible with models six months later, or models that are undergoing proprietary deployments at that very moment inside the major labs, or even models that are notionally available for public use but have had recursive self-improvement adjacent capabilities intentionally nerfed (e.g., Fable).

(I might be misinterpreting your comment tbc - if you mean observing commoditization implies there is no existing, ambient superintelligence at the moment of that observation, then I don't disagree.)

Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#333

Post by int3trap » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 1:02 PM UTC

beshrkayali wrote: post #285

skrebbel wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nuts how well "Superintelligence: The Idea That Eats Smart People"[0] aged. That talk is a decade old by now and still hits just as hard as it did back then, despite the incredible advances made in AI in the meantime. [0] https://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm

This is hilariously true > AI risk is string theory for computer programmers. It's fun to think about, interesting, and completely inaccessible to experiment given our current technology. You can build crystal palaces of thought, working from first principles, then climb up inside them and pull the ladder up behind you. People who can reach preposterous conclusions from a long chain of abstract reasoning, and feel co…

> but why does everybody want to be a prophet?

Its not everyone building crystal palaces in their mind, they're all building fortresses. And they can't be wrong in their fortress or it breaks their world view which they cannot accept.

Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#334

Post by throw310822 » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 1:03 PM UTC

davemp wrote: post #321

trebaud wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you deeply suffer from normalcy bias. Not believing that AGI is possible is irrational and unscientific imo, the human brain exists, it is not made of magic, it can reproduced. It is as simple as that. We can debate about timelines, architectures that may lead us there, etc... You can even talk all day long about definitions of AGI, and people waste their time doing that. But saying that the human brain cognitive…

There is a vast gulf between theoretically possible and technologically feasible. If you can’t provide a realistic path to achieve something, you’re asking people to believe in science fiction. You could tell me that a rock’s molecules are comprised of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Blood is also entirely protons, neutrons, and electrons; so theoretically, one could rearrange stone into blood. But without an actua…

Jesus... This morning while I was drinking coffee and staring at the screen (it's Saturday) an agent did the equivalent of days of my work, reading code, understanding, hypothesizing, comparing, using tools, writing scripts, launching compilers and running tests, identifying problems and proposing solutions, and more. Only someone who hasn't spent a second reflecting about what it means to think and to be intelligent can claim that we miss a realistic path to intelligence. It's so damn clueless and stubborn and confidently wrong that it annoys me immensely, so sorry for the rant.

Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#335

Post by 5701652400 » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 1:08 PM UTC

"just get divident from govenment"

almost nothing about how wealth is distributed. hard to believe richest, greediest, most corrupt people will just gave away money to everyone.

start by opening borders. see how that goes.

not gonna happen.

Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#336

Post by 27183 » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 1:11 PM UTC

davemp wrote: post #321

trebaud wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you deeply suffer from normalcy bias. Not believing that AGI is possible is irrational and unscientific imo, the human brain exists, it is not made of magic, it can reproduced. It is as simple as that. We can debate about timelines, architectures that may lead us there, etc... You can even talk all day long about definitions of AGI, and people waste their time doing that. But saying that the human brain cognitive…

There is a vast gulf between theoretically possible and technologically feasible. If you can’t provide a realistic path to achieve something, you’re asking people to believe in science fiction. You could tell me that a rock’s molecules are comprised of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Blood is also entirely protons, neutrons, and electrons; so theoretically, one could rearrange stone into blood. But without an actua…

I used the example of 1G constant acceleration space flight in another thread which got downvoted to oblivion, but I think it's a good one. That's a technology we know how to build. We just need superconducting electronics and miniaturized fusion reactors, or a ship which is built like Project Orion to use nuclear bombs for propulsion.

Now write down a blueprint for superintelligence.

So I've given you two impossible engineering challenges, but one of them is feasible in principle because we at least have the tools to begin to tackle the theoretical calculations and therefore we can do engineering. We cannot do engineering on the superintelligence problem yet.

In my view it would be insane to believe we can build something that we can't even reliably imagine yet.

Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#337

Post by throw310822 » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 1:12 PM UTC

KaiserPro wrote: post #251

The biggest issue with 2027 was that it didn't understand the economy. For AI2027 to be real, the money has to come from somewhere to carry on building the economy. If >10% of the workers suddenly become unemployed, and the rest taking paycuts, then money supply dries up. (unless central banks do something, but then that can be highly inflationary) Without massive amounts of investment, AI development stops dead. In…

> Without massive amounts of investment, AI development stops dead.

Would the US government not pour enormous resources in AI labs if needed, knowing that China might be doing the same? What happens if an adversary develops an AI capable of finding and implementing exploits in every software run by your country's strategic infrastructure?

Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#338

Post by andy99 » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 1:14 PM UTC

looksjjhg wrote: post #181

Why are they obsessed with China?! Actually most of the US are. I guess if you’ve been a colonizer, your biggest fear is to be colonized.

The AI narrative requires an enemy and a “race” that the US has to win. It’s a pretext for justifying spending, rules, urgency, etc and making it sound more important.

Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#339

Post by themgt » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 1:15 PM UTC

davemp wrote: post #321

trebaud wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you deeply suffer from normalcy bias. Not believing that AGI is possible is irrational and unscientific imo, the human brain exists, it is not made of magic, it can reproduced. It is as simple as that. We can debate about timelines, architectures that may lead us there, etc... You can even talk all day long about definitions of AGI, and people waste their time doing that. But saying that the human brain cognitive…

There is a vast gulf between theoretically possible and technologically feasible. If you can’t provide a realistic path to achieve something, you’re asking people to believe in science fiction. You could tell me that a rock’s molecules are comprised of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Blood is also entirely protons, neutrons, and electrons; so theoretically, one could rearrange stone into blood. But without an actua…

What's strange to me about these comments is they're timeless. They could have been written in 2026 or 2016 or 1966.

Like, afaict, for many on HN going from ELIZA->Fable 5 just didn't cause any update to priors regarding this whole philosophical question. The argument against has remained unchanged. I don't see any point in arguing about it, I just find it very strange.

Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#340

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 1:16 PM UTC

taurath wrote: post #277

skrebbel wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nuts how well "Superintelligence: The Idea That Eats Smart People"[0] aged. That talk is a decade old by now and still hits just as hard as it did back then, despite the incredible advances made in AI in the meantime. [0] https://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm

Yeah I think its possible that for many folks its the first time they're coming up on these concepts, and it troubles them in the same way that the concept of death troubles them (and me, to be clear!). For me its as simple as watching how people talk, and seeing how in every single case whatever the next thing is, if you believe It, there is only ever justification of doubling down, doing more, going deeper, reducin…

>> Even if one throws that aside, spending time exploring and building with the most state of the art LLMs is just as instructive. I'm watching the implementation - whats working is ML models trained on specific domains (not much different than 5+ years ago), and whats not working is a general model that humanity can let go to work on its own. Sit in front and observe ideas turn to the samey intellectual, high-syllable mush. Its productive, but not in any way that's promised.

Important point. LLMs were early on hailed as the first general-puprose AIs that can perform any task (remember "Sparks of AGI"?). Today they're increasingly promoted for specialised applications - coding, as a for instance.