I don't think there is evidence in either direction (takeoff impossible vs inevitable). But the "convex hull" idea always came across as wishful thinking and hand-wavy pseudo-science to me. Here's a rebuttal [0] of it from Tim Gowers (uses another math metaphor, but still clear and the whole thread is worth a read): >...the popularity of the idea that AI "merely explores the convex hull" mystifies me. Why wouldn't it be more like the subgroup generated by existing mathematical knowledge? (That's also a metaphor -- I'm not saying there's a group structure.) >The convex hull metaphor suggests that AI isn't having radically new ideas and will eventually run out of things to do, whereas the group metaphor suggests the possibility of building up in small steps to something well beyond what you started with, with no obvious limit. [0] twitter.com/wtgowers/status/21080909208…

Also check out this thread: x.com/tszzl/status/2109822082024656927

Haha that is true and probably is some of the explanation for the gap, and there's still a long ways to go so who knows if the capturable value of the capability increase grows fast enough to justify the capital investment. I think it's important to take greater note of who is joining the choir this time, though, as Karpathy, Lütke, DHH, Sweeney, Persson, etc. are publicly communicating something different than a couple months ago [1][2][3]. While the people previously responsible were far more likely to be "talking their book" so to speak as producers of AI or act like religious converts, the new crop are consumers of AI for genuine productivity gains that view the technology with a more secular lens rooted in productivity growth. [1] x.com/karpathy/status/21093615465059660… [2] businessinsider.com/minecraft-creator-m…... [3] x.com/dhh/status/2102936073642869121

Karpathy yesterday posted [1] about the gap between small % of population getting high leverage from AI, and the rest of the world. We have a much more urgent gap between software powering the "physical world", and the digital natives. The digital natives now have 10x leverage with AI, with the ability to rapidly find and deploy exploits. We're now seeing a lot of this - fridges defrosting, access cards for construction workers not working. Next is train and air traffic controls, bank transactions/clearing wiped out, shipping being dismantled and so on. The gap is now being fully exposed. [1] x.com/karpathy/status/21093615465059660…

Reinforces what Karpathy tweeted [1], that AI is effectively tackling 2-5% of work and the gap between those fully exploiting AI and barely touching it is growing. The question remains whether this AI focus on the small % of workers is actually intentional (by tech/labs), or a natural limit of where AI is right now. [1] x.com/karpathy/status/21093615465059660…

Thanks, thats interesting and much higher than I would have thought Found the tweet: x.com/karpathy/status/21093615465059660…

I doubt this will happen anytime soon. 90% of people are still using the free versions of ChatGPT (or maybe Claude) for the most basic tasks. This reminds me of a post by karpathy: x.com/karpathy/status/21093615465059660…

Top reply on X: > You’re drilling with a hand drill. Some people got cordless drills. About 5,000 people got entire factories. > We’re still arguing if cordless drills are useful, and those 5,000 are already building teleporters. That’s how far ahead they can get. x.com/adam_fresko/status/21093637510489…