You point is spot on but I want to point out a few things missing from your analysis that you might conclude will accelerate the time frame you put forward
1. You left out the “Information Age”. This is a critical step in human progress that is enabling every single person in the world to have access to the entire world’s knowledge. As a result, when problems and opportunities are identified and/ insights gained, this information spreads to all of humanity. As a result, you multiple magnitudes more people working on the innovation at the same time.
When the steam engine was invented in 1712, it took a long time for the knowledge of this invention to spread across the globe. As a result, it took a long time to harness the collective ingenuity and motivation of humanity to leverage this invention.
Today that can happen in hours, if not minutes.
2. The very invention itself will accelerate innovation. Either through direct innovation itself (this is more speculative) or at the very least enabling innovators to innovate more effectively and efficiently.
I'd just like to point out that, at present, AI is shockingly bad at using references, or even making lists of references. University librarians across the USA are reporting AI-generated reference lists that are comprised of apparent journal articles that do not exist--they're amalgamations of author names, article titles, and journal names, with totally fabricated DOIs and volume and page numbers. (I have also seen this in my own educational and scholarly work.) This is the case even when, for instance, ChatGPT is given a list or real references formatted in one style, and just asked to reformat the existing list of references to another style. AI can make predictions about what words follow other words to make something that looks like a reference page, but at present it cannot apply a set of formatting rules. On the other hand, purpose-built programs like EndNote have existed for more than 20 years and execute this task flawlessly.
I think that something that could hold AI-related progress back is this expectation that all things AI outstrip all previous technologies right this minute, causing people to try to force AI to do things it can't (and that we have other technologies that can.)
I see this as being roughly analogous to early steam engines that couldn't do rotary motion well. You use them for some things and not others, and in the meantime, the underlying technology improves and becomes suitable for new use cases.
You point is spot on but I want to point out a few things missing from your analysis that you might conclude will accelerate the time frame you put forward
1. You left out the “Information Age”. This is a critical step in human progress that is enabling every single person in the world to have access to the entire world’s knowledge. As a result, when problems and opportunities are identified and/ insights gained, this information spreads to all of humanity. As a result, you multiple magnitudes more people working on the innovation at the same time.
When the steam engine was invented in 1712, it took a long time for the knowledge of this invention to spread across the globe. As a result, it took a long time to harness the collective ingenuity and motivation of humanity to leverage this invention.
Today that can happen in hours, if not minutes.
2. The very invention itself will accelerate innovation. Either through direct innovation itself (this is more speculative) or at the very least enabling innovators to innovate more effectively and efficiently.
Thanks. Those factors are real, and they're why I think the transition can happen faster this time. But again, I still think that's decades.
I'd just like to point out that, at present, AI is shockingly bad at using references, or even making lists of references. University librarians across the USA are reporting AI-generated reference lists that are comprised of apparent journal articles that do not exist--they're amalgamations of author names, article titles, and journal names, with totally fabricated DOIs and volume and page numbers. (I have also seen this in my own educational and scholarly work.) This is the case even when, for instance, ChatGPT is given a list or real references formatted in one style, and just asked to reformat the existing list of references to another style. AI can make predictions about what words follow other words to make something that looks like a reference page, but at present it cannot apply a set of formatting rules. On the other hand, purpose-built programs like EndNote have existed for more than 20 years and execute this task flawlessly.
I think that something that could hold AI-related progress back is this expectation that all things AI outstrip all previous technologies right this minute, causing people to try to force AI to do things it can't (and that we have other technologies that can.)
I see this as being roughly analogous to early steam engines that couldn't do rotary motion well. You use them for some things and not others, and in the meantime, the underlying technology improves and becomes suitable for new use cases.