Sholto Douglas: prediction

Transcript context

…Exactly. Anyways, there's a whole bunch of other things that you can think of about it. But even there, you kind of have a broadly deployed intelligence explosion. I do think it's worth pressing on that future. There is this whole spectrum of crazy futures. But the one that I feel we're almost guaranteed to get—this is a strong statement to make—is one where at the very least, you get a drop-in white collar worker at some point in the next five years. I think it's very likely in two, but it seems almost overdetermined in five. On the grand scheme of things, those are kind of irrelevant timeframes. It's the same either way. That completely changes the world over the next decade. If we don't have the right policies in place for that, then you end up actually with in some respects, almost a fundamentally worse world. Because the thing that these models get good at by default is software engineering and computer using agents and this kind of stuff. Then we will need to put in extra effort to put them in the loops where they help us with scientific research. Or we have the right robotics, such that we actually experience an increase in material quality of life. That's worth thinking about. If you're in the perspective of like, “I'm a country, what should I be doing or thinking about?” Plan for the case where white collar work is automateable. And then consider, what does that mean for your economy? What you should be doing to prepare policy? What should you be doing to prepare? Because honestly, this is such a tough question if you're India or Nigeria or Australia. If you're a country unlike America or China where they do have frontier models, what is it that you should be doing right now? Especially on such a short timescale.…

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