V_V comments on AI timeline predictions: are we getting better? - Less Wrong

54 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 17 August 2012 07:07AM

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Comment author: CarlShulman 17 September 2012 04:16:13AM 2 points [-]

AGI, fusion, space and nanotech also share the reference class of cornucopian predictions.

Although there have been some pretty successful cornucopian predictions too: mass production, electricity, scientific agriculture (pesticides, modern crop breeding, artificial fertilizer), and audiovisual recording. By historical standards developed countries do have superabundant manufactured goods, food, music/movies/news/art, and household labor-saving devices.

Comment author: V_V 17 September 2012 10:39:33AM *  1 point [-]

Were those developments predicted decades in advance? I'm talking about relatively mainstream predictions, not predictions by some individual researcher who could have got it right by chance.

Comment author: CarlShulman 17 September 2012 11:11:46AM 2 points [-]

Reader's Digest and the like. All you needed to do was straightforward trend extrapolation during a period of exceptionally fast change in everyday standards of living.