takeoff scenarios

Ethan Mollick @emollick

2026-08-07 — saved image

Ethan Mollick @emollick · 7h
We are as @sebkrier points out, in a Vingean soft take-off scenario at a minimum. Even the most AI skeptical observers expect AGI/ASI to be achieved & diffused in less than a century at this point

[quoted book page image]
370  Vernor Vinge

  Whether foresight and good planning can make any difference may depend on whether the technological Singularity comes as a "hard takeoff" or a "soft takeoff." A hard takeoff is one in which the transition to superhuman control takes just a few hundred hours (as in Greg Bear's "Blood Music"). It seems to me that hard takeoffs would be very hard to plan for; they would be like the avalanches I speak of here in the 1993 essay. The most nightmarish form of a hard take-off might be one arising from an arms race, with two nation-states racing forward with their separate "manhattan projects" for superhuman power. The equivalent of decades of human-level espionage might be compressed into the last few hours of the race, and all human control and judgment surrendered to some very destructive goals.
  On the other hand, a soft takeoff is a transition that takes decades, perhaps more than a century. This situation seems much more amenable to planning and to thoughtful experimentation. Hans Moravec discusses such a soft transition in Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind.
  Of course (as with starting avalanches), it may not be clear what the right guiding nudge really is.

ai safetysingularitytakeoff scenariosvernor vingetwitter