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When will the future arrive? Of course, thats a nonsense question. The future isnt a fixed point that suddenly arrives. Time flows continuously, and were always moving from today into tomorrow. As soon as a moment arrives, it becomes the present, and then immediately becomes the past. Rather than a destination even one with flying cars and mile-high skyscrapers the future is a continuous process of experiencing each new moment as it comes. Kind of a brain-bender, I know.

A better version of that question: When will the sorts of technological advancements that we often think of as futuristic finally happen? As the saying, (attributed to many different folks) goes, It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.

That caveat noted, here are some current consensus predictions from the Metaculus forecasting platform:

That last forecast is particularly interesting to me since it suggests how forecasts can affect each other. For example: If the forecast for the date of artificial general intelligence or superintelligence were moved forward, it should prompt forecasters to reconsider timelines for other tech advancements like cancer cures or nuclear fusion. That, especially if forecasters believe AGI could accelerate research and development in those areas.

Which they absolutely should. Indeed, the potential impact on accelerating scientific and tech progress is a big part of the bullish case for AGI and the economy although one ignored by most economic forecasters on Wall Street and in Washington.

Take the recent debate between economist Daron Acemoglu and Goldman Sachs about the economic impact of AI.The crux of the disputeis their differing assumptions about AIs potential for task automation, as well as Goldmans inclusion of labor reallocation and new job creation in its analysis. These are factors Acemoglu doesnt account for in his more pessimistic prediction. Butneitherof them includes the potential impact of radical tech breakthroughs, something tough to model.

As Acemogluputs it:

I also do not discuss how AI can have revolutionary effects by changing the process of science (a possibility illustrated by neural network-enabled advances in protein folding and new crystal structures discovered by the Google subsidiary DeepMind), because large-scale advances of this sort do not seem likely within the 10-year time frame and many current discussions focus on automation and task complementarities.

But in this newsletter, I like to consider what Acemoglu calls revolutionary effects. And so does computer science and inventor Ray Kurzweil, author of the booksThe Age of Spiritual Machines(1999) andThe Singularity is Near(2005). His new book,The Singularity is Nearer: When We Merge with AI, will be published on June 25th. In anessayfor the new issue of The Economist, Kurzweil does a great job of outlining how AI will affect other aspects of science and technology:

Kurzweil:

By the time children born today are in kindergarten, artificial intelligence (ai) will probably have surpassed humans at all cognitive tasks, from science to creativity. When I first predicted in 1999 that we would have such artificial general intelligence by 2029, most experts thought Id switched to writing fiction. But since the spectacular breakthroughs of the past few years, many experts think we will have AGI even soonerso Ive technically gone from being an optimist to a pessimist, without changing my prediction at all.

The techno-optimist highlights three key areas to showcase AIs transformative potential:

The Kurzweil kicker: This is AIs most transformative promise: longer, healthier lives unbounded by the scarcity and frailty that have limited humanity since its beginnings.

As I see it, the real value in what Kurzweil is saying isnt its predictive power or insights into AI timelines but rather the Up Wing image of the future it suggests. A big theme of my bookThe Conservative Futuristis the importance of having positive images of the future. They are crucial for societal progress and human flourishing. From the book:

American historian Carl Becker notes in his 1936 book Progress and Power that a Philosopher could not grasp the modern idea of progressuntil he was willing to abandon ancestor worship, until he analyzed away his inferiority complex toward the past, and realized that his own generation was superior to any yet known.

The ancient Greeks, for instance, conceived of the future in a fundamentally different way than the modern West. My Hellenic ancestors didnt face the future to see what was coming. They instead metaphorically had their backs turned to the future and faced the past, viewing what had already happened as a guide to what might happen next.

But in the two centuries between Columbus sailing to the New World and the death of Isaac Newton in 1727, doubts arose about the wisdom of the ancients. If the natural philosophers of the past didnt know about the vast continent and peoples across the Atlantic or about gravity, what else might they not have known or gotten wrong? This newfound skepticism helped power the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the rise of an Up Wing culture among the literate elite of Europeastronomers, chemists, clergymen, doctors, engineers, mathematicians.

Dutch futurist Frederik Polak argued that cultures without optimistic visions of tomorrow lack direction and vitality. Positive future images inspire innovation, drive scientific and tech advancements, and motivate people to work towards better outcomes. Without such visions, we risk stagnation or decline. And Kurzweil just gave us a pretty compelling vision. Hope to see more of them. Faster, please!

More:

The Future That AI Can Help Build - American Enterprise Institute