[pas]

no, I do believe that Devin-type agents are coming (like OpenAI's Codex) and they are being used to produce code, but currently the bottleneck is code review (curation), and yes it makes sense to try and relaunch with new code (run tests, benchmarks, etc.. and if it's better than the previous then switch over - genetic algorithms are doing exactly this, now the mutator will be smarter than random)

but saying that "since it was possible already many years ago and we are still alive" the whole argument is false doesn't stand up to scrutiny, because the argument doesn't make any claim on speed nor does it depend on it. quite the opposite, it depends on accumulating infinitesimal gains (of intelligence and misalignment).

FOOM (fast take off, intelligence explosion either through deception or by someone asking for a bit too many paperclips) is simply one scenario. also notice that even this (or any sudden loss of control) doesn't depend on the timimgs between first self-improving agent, FOOM, and then death.

like I said the hypothesis is pretty coherent logically (though obviously not a tautology), but the constant factors are pretty important (duh!)

... I think spending time on the LessWrong debates is a waste of time because by 2022 the neuroticism took over and there were no real answers to challenges