[seanhunter]

That wasn’t just a physics professor that was William Thompson aka Lord Kelvin (the dude the temperature unit is named after and one of the most important mathematical physicists of the 19th century [1]), who also said that heavier than air flight was physically impossible only a couple of weeks before the Wright Brothers (and presumably in spite of having at least once in his lifetime seen a bird). Proof that you can be both very smart and simultaneously a bit of a jackass.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Kelvin

[cyanydeez]

I love these arguments "You know, we thought we couldn't cross the ocean, and now we did!"

This means we can just jump over to mars, then explore other planets, etc, etc.

We know tons of regimes where there is non-continuous progress. Finding a smart dude with an anecdote does not invalidate the breadth and width of all human experience with non-continuous systems.

Some dude thought all fluid was newtonian, and then we discovered non-newtonian fluid. It does exactly what yuou don't expect. Which basically demos physics is complex but that still doesn't mean progress is fluid.

[seanhunter]

Definitely. It’s a lesson for me in remaining humble and not making too many confident predictions.

[cyanydeez]

while cute, that doesn't address the size and magnitude of the "AGI" and Singularity that AI proponents claim, and definitely not the person with anxiety that they're some how going to be put into the "permanent underclass"

Another good line to look at is how people believe in ghosts: people with established religions without "ghosts" are less likely to believe in ghosts than people with atheism, even when they'd supposedly be skeptics superstitious claims.

Having functional paradigms is important, and being confident that there isn't a magical extrapolation into AGI is healthier than there being some magical exponential increase that you have to ride the dragon.

Sorry man, we're not solipsistic here. There are reasonable beliefs that are justifiable, instructive and then there are ones that require cherry picking technology indistinguishable from magic without reference to reality and physics.

[wwweston]

I’ve totally lost the thread here but this is interesting.

Who are the religions without ghosts?

And is the overall point “just because we’ve made big leaps of progress doesn’t mean every challenge is tractable let alone a moonshot sprint away especially those we have solid theoretical limits on”? That’s a point I certainly find amenable to I just want to make sure I’m not missing something more subtle or sophisticated.