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Back to Leopold Aschenbrenner — 2027 AGI, China/US super-intelligence race, & the return of history, with Leopold Aschenbrenner.

Why Do Ideas Get Harder to Find?

Leopold Aschenbrenner says ideas get harder to find because each next discovery takes a log-scale jump in cumulative research effort. On a log-log plot the pattern is a straight line, with log cumulative research effort on the horizontal axis and log output on the vertical axis. The first discovery is easy. Later discoveries show up only after total research effort has multiplied again.

Dwarkesh Patel cites the point Patrick Collison and others have made. Compared with 100 years ago, the world has 100 times more researchers, and progress is not happening 100 times faster. Leopold Aschenbrenner says the hundred-times figure is easy to inflate and the increase is probably at least 10 times. A 10-times rise in research effort is, for him, an extremely natural story. The same straight line fits GDP, algorithmic progress, transistors per square inch, and the price of a gigawatt of solar.

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Transcript

Leopold Aschenbrenner — 2027 AGI, China/US super-intelligence race, & the return of history ·

Dwarkesh Podcast

More from this episode

  1. What Is the Key Question for AI Progress?Leopold Aschenbrenner says the key question for AI progress in the next few years is how hard it is to unlock the test-time compute overhang.
  2. How Does Automating AI Research Create Superintelligence?Leopold Aschenbrenner says automating AI research takes the path from AGI to AI vastly smarter than humans within a year or a couple of years.
  3. When Will the World Notice Superintelligence Is Coming?Leopold Aschenbrenner says the world still has a few more years of midgame before superintelligence feels obvious.
  4. What Did Leopold Aschenbrenner's Great-grandmother Live Through?Leopold Aschenbrenner says his great-grandmother lived through the Nazi era, World War II, and most of her life under the East German communist dictatorship.
  5. How Much Electricity Does a 100 Gigawatt AI Cluster Use?Leopold Aschenbrenner says a 100 gigawatt AI cluster uses over 20 percent of United States electricity production.
  6. Should Only Democracies Develop Artificial General Intelligence?Leopold Aschenbrenner says a narrow coalition of democracies should be the group developing artificial general intelligence.
  7. How Easy Is It to Steal Unreleased AI Code?Leopold Aschenbrenner says stealing important unreleased AI code is extremely easy. DeepMind does not claim that taking the code is hard.
  8. Why Is a Three-month AI Lead Dangerous?Leopold Aschenbrenner says a neck-and-neck race with only a three-month lead is incredibly dangerous, while a 20 or 30 year technological lead is totally…
  9. Why Is AI Arms Control Unstable in a Close Race?Leopold Aschenbrenner says an arms control agreement is very unstable when the race is close, because three months ahead is enough to win.
  10. What Is Leopold Aschenbrenner Waiting to Buy?Dwarkesh Patel says Leopold Aschenbrenner told an influential person he is not going to spend any money on consumption until he is ready to buy galaxies.
  11. Why Not Wait to Nationalize AI?An early nationalization is what would lock stuff down in time, and Leopold Aschenbrenner expects America to move only once events are already obvious, in a…
  12. Why Does AI Alignment Look Like a War?Leopold Aschenbrenner says alignment during an intelligence explosion looks like a war in a fog of war, not years of bureaucracy that end in written standards.
  13. Why Did the Future Fund Collapse?The Future Fund collapsed from one day to the next in November of 22, after it came out that the backer was a giant fraud.
  14. Why Was Leopold Aschenbrenner Fired From OpenAI?Leopold Aschenbrenner says OpenAI told employees he was fired for leaking.
  15. Why Is There So Much Drama at OpenAI?Leopold Aschenbrenner says the drama at OpenAI comes from a real belief that OpenAI is building AGI, then a failure to take the implications seriously or keep…
  16. Can AI Research Explode Before Robots Do Physical Work?Leopold Aschenbrenner says an AI research explosion can start before robots do ordinary physical work.
  17. Why Is a Private AI Race Tough for Alignment?Leopold Aschenbrenner says the private world is extremely tough for alignment, even when labs nominally care.
  18. Is China Impenetrable to Outsiders?Leopold Aschenbrenner says China is impenetrable to him.
  19. Did Aschenbrenner Publish Knowing China Would Read It?Leopold Aschenbrenner published knowing people in the PRC would read the series.
  20. Why Did Mormon Fertility Rates Fall?Mormon fertility rates fell once the community grew big enough to live in close contact with ordinary society, Leopold Aschenbrenner says.
  21. Why Does Capital Still Matter After Superintelligence?Capital still matters after superintelligence because the decade after artificial general intelligence stays wild, and Leopold Aschenbrenner says there is a…

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