Demis Hassabis's new interview:

"Society needs to hear that because we don't have long to prepare for what that means. We are standing in the foothills of the singularity now.

..which is AGI. I believe that we are only a few years away from that, maybe around 2030, plus or minus a year. "

~ Demis Hassabis, Co-Founder and CEO of Google DeepMind

It is going to be enormously profound, I think. The future, in my view, is still to be written. But these next few years are going to be very critical as to which way that will go, and how we collectively want that to look.”

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IMO, The real disruption is not whether AGI arrives exactly in 2030, plus or minus a year, but whether institutions can adapt, as in post-AGI world, technology will change much faster than human systems can respond.

Schools still train people for stable professions, companies still organize work around human bottlenecks, and governments still regulate after harm becomes visible.

AGI, if it arrives anywhere near the frontier-lab timelines, compresses that lag into a dangerous gap.

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From "Stanford Graduate School of Business" YouTube channel, (link in comment)

The funny thing is that there are traditions that concerned themselves with preparing consciousness to survive perturbatory transformations (e.g., discorporation) unscathed, and they have been at it for thousands of years, but all of them say the same thing: there is no shortcut.

The timeline is so short now that there's nothing you can really do about it. It's like falling off a cliff. You've already reached terminal velocity, and the ground is approaching fast. You can't speedrun all the work required to build the structures in your mind that would allow you to navigate what's coming. The discorporation is going to be drastic, dramatic, and very, very unsettling.

Some six or seven years ago, when I embarked on the path, I thought that as we approach the singularity, Buddhism and other traditions would become in high demand.

Now that we are reaching the end of the rope, I finally understand the true meaning of compassion. Since everyone's actions are determined by their karmic trajectory, there's nothing in the world one can do for anybody to prepare them for what's coming. The only thing one can do is stand on the side and feel compassion for those who are not ready.

So, the societies will not prepare in time, the religious leaders won't help them, and the traditions won't rescue them.

N.b., this process playing itself out before our eyes always makes me think of the Qur'an and one of the most puzzling revelations contained therein: that there will be no intercession for anyone on the Last Day. This is often interpreted as Allah being some kind of cruel judge who won't permit anyone to plead on behalf of the sinners. Such an interpretation is inconsistent with the overall message of the scripture. So, why is Allah constantly reminding the faithful of this fact? My interpretation is that Allah simply points out a *structural feature* of reality—nobody can update your model for you. It can only be done from within.

Buddha extends this further and says that essentially all the work that in principle can be done from within is also a result of a positive karmic trajectory. Just how much choice one has in this matter is somewhat debatable (i.e., whether free will is a thing), but whatever the answer, it's bounded by "not much" from above, and quite likely it's exactly: nothing.

And so, after many years, I finally comprehend compassion. It's not that the future will be bad. It's just that the transition is going to hurt.