I've already given my answer to the question: never. Human effort is different from 
computational effort. Human intelligence is intertwined with machine intelligence and 
vice versa. It's a category error to ask when machines will "surpass" (or 
whatever word you choose) humans in XYZ activity. The right question to ask is how will 
any given machine change humans? And the corollary how will humans change the machines?

Hammers are better at blunt impact than the human using the hammer. But that 
wasn't always true. Hammering with a limestone rock was arguably no better than 
hammering with one's fist.

But, the hammer is a human tool. Currently, the variety of AI tools are still 
human tools. The discussion we're actually having is if (or when) humans will 
become the AIs' tools. Ecologically, even that question is silly. Are the 
microbes in my gut *my* tools? Are we the tools of Sars-COV-2? These are mostly 
stupid questions.

Asking when AI will surpass humans at activity XYZ is a similar question. It preemptively 
registers the categories. If you find an AI tool that does something better than *you* do 
that thing, then *change* what you do ... fold yourself into the control manifold of the 
tool. That's what we did ... It's what our children have done ... It's what their 
children's children will do. ("Our" being general, here. I have no children, 
thank Yog.)


On 5/20/25 10:38 PM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
This naturally leads to the million-dollar question: if — and if so, when — AI 
will surpass the very best humans across all scientific domains. Sam Altman 
seems to suggest that we may soon be able to rent access to a PhD-level AI for 
as little as $10,000 to $20,000. Although that will obviously be a 
game-changer, I would still make the bar higher than that. I'm struggling a bit 
to define this properly, so although it's not a definition, for now I'll stick 
to I'll know it when I see it.

--
¡sıɹƎ ןıɐH ⊥ ɐןןǝdoɹ ǝ uǝןƃ
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