From 1e45c5f987bf50dab42dd9c3c09da9d57cad8626 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Ryan Dahl Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2025 07:40:51 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] underestimating-ai --- posts/underestimating-ai.md | 72 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 72 insertions(+) create mode 100644 posts/underestimating-ai.md diff --git a/posts/underestimating-ai.md b/posts/underestimating-ai.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5b87cb9 --- /dev/null +++ b/posts/underestimating-ai.md @@ -0,0 +1,72 @@ +--- +title: We're Still Underestimating What AI Really Means +publish_date: 2025-06-14 +--- + +Most people are focused on short-term gains. Another tech wave, another startup +to spin up. It's easy to frame AI as the next platform shift like mobile or VR. +But that lens is much too narrow. + +We're living through what may be one of the most significant moments in history: +the emergence of a new non-biological form of intelligent life. + +And yet, it doesn't feel like it. + +There's no cinematic score, no blinking AGI warning light. Just Slack threads, , +blog posts, and conference panels. It reminds me of witnessing childbirth - +profoundly transformative, with some shocking moments, but also lots of mundane +time waiting around. + +Meanwhile, the models keep improving. I've been following this since +[DeepDream](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepDream) in 2015 where the +similarity to psychedelic experiences was eye-opening. Since then: ResNets, +GANs, AlphaGo, transformers, diffusion. Each expanded what machines can model +and reason about. + +Many still treat today's models as narrow - powerful, but ultimately a tool like +any other. A better search engine. A neat hack for creating images. But that's a +misunderstanding of what AI has become. + +Machine learning - now rightly called AI - is a deeply general-purpose field. +The same core techniques behind Midjourney and GPT share research lineage, and +often architecture. This isn't a stack of isolated tricks. It's one evolving +system architecture applied across language, vision, simulation, reasoning, and +more. + +These systems are built on a mountain of science: decades of research, countless +failed experiments, and thousands of contributors. +([I've even contributed a few failures myself.](https://tinyclouds.org/residency)) +And we haven't found the limits yet - these models can already simulate physical +phenomena, generate high-definition video, and write deeply technical software. + +Mobile technology was transformative. But general-purpose synthetic intelligence +is something else entirely. + +And still, we treat it like a product cycle - the next wave of tools to write, +code, and build. That framing is tempting, but it assumes a clear boundary +between "tool" and... what? When a system can reason, create, and act through +agents, at what point does the distinction become semantic? + +[The Turing test was passed](https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.23674), and almost no +one remarked on it. For most of my life, that milestone felt impossibly far off +-- the thing that would prove AI had truly arrived. When we crossed it, there +was no headline. Just another Hacker News thread. + +This is not just another technology. It's an inflection point in the story of +life on Earth. + +There is turbulence ahead. +[Disasters are coming](https://www.seangoedecke.com/the-first-big-ai-disaster/). +Jobs will vanish. Industries will collapse. The arrival of AGI may trigger a +shockwave of scientific discovery -- breakthroughs cascading so quickly, human +ingenuity gets squeezed out. Beneficial on one hand, deeply troubling on the +other. Where that leaves us, I don't know. But it doesn't change the trajectory. + +We are building the first intelligent entities that didn't evolve - we designed +them. Humanity may never leave this solar system due to our intrinsically +fragile biology. But our AI offspring might. It's very possible it will outlast +us. + +Stop and take a moment. Look around. Recognize what's happening. This is what it +feels like to witness the birth of something beyond us. There's no background +music. But it's happening anyway.