> There is a group of wealthy individuals who have bought in to the idea that the singularity is months away.
My question is "how many months need to pass until they realize it isn't months away?"
What, it used to be 2025? Then 2027? Now 2030? I know these are not all the same people but there are trends of to keep pushing it back. I guess Elon has been saying full self-driving is a year away since 2016 so maybe this belief can sustain itself for quite some time.
So my second question is: does the expectation of achievements being so close lengthen the time to make such achievements?
I don't think it is insane to think it could. If you think it is really close you'd underestimate the size of certain problems. Claim people are making mountains out of molehills. So you put efforts elsewhere, only to find that those things weren't molehills after all.
Predictions are hard and I think a lot of people confuse critiques with lack of motivation. Some people do find flaws and use them as excuses to claim everything is fruitless. But I think most people that find flaws are doing so in an effort to actually push things forward. I mean isn't that the job of any engineer or scientist? You can't solve problems if you can't identify problems. Triaging and prioritizing problems is a whole other mess, but it is harder to do when you're working at the edge of known knowledge. Little details are often not so little.
