[simonh]

We’re currently in the very early phase of our understanding of what intelligence is. The more we learn about it, the more we appreciate the staggering scale and complexity of the problem. So at the moment yes, it seems like the objective is receding into the distance faster than our progress towards it can keep up.

1960s - Herbert Simmons predicts "Machines will be capable, within 20 years, of doing any work a man can do."

1993 - Vernor Vinge predicts super-intelligent AIs 'within 30 years'.

2011 - Ray Kurzweil predicts the singularity (enabled by super-intelligent AIs) will occur by 2045, 34 years after the prediction was made.

So the distance into the future before we achieve strong AI and hence the singularity has been, according to it's most optimistic proponents, receding by more than 1 year per year.

Eventually I believe we will get a good enough understanding of the subject that we can map out a route to implementing AGI, and then our progress will accelerate towards a known and understood goal.