Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c898IR // #c898Synthesis

Once a machine reaches roughly human-level general reasoning, it can redesign itself - and each improved version redesigns faster. The question is not whether machines get smarter, but how long the gap is between human-level and radically superintelligent. That gap could be years, months, or days.

— In our words · Source: Superintelligence (Nick Bostrom)

[Use when]

Arguing about AI timelines - shift the debate from arrival to takeoff speed.

[Why it matters]

Reframes timelines. The dangerous phase is not the slow climb to human-level; it is the takeoff after.

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