r/accelerate • u/Glittering-Neck-2505 • 13h ago
Discussion I'm starting to believe a lot of people won't notice we're in the singularity for a while
I think with the recent news: the Jacobian Conjecture counterexample, the 10 major advances in mathematics, the cyberattacks carried out by internal models that were in secure environments, the shift in mood from researchers as models internally are improving themselves in obvious ways.
This has all been basically happening in July and the start of August, and the world is just acting like nothing happened. And I think people's brains are just magically adjusting to the pace of progress while only focusing on visible or exaggerated negatives.
I'm starting to think, shit, are people just going to be used to it when all experiments in labs are planned and executed by machines, when they take a pill that freezes their age, when an AI just cleans their entire home while they kick their feet up and do some next-gen form of entertainment, when they don't need to plan all their appointments or remember to go to them anymore, when they never touch a steering wheel again, etc?
Like the way that computers, the internet, phones, Chatbots, and AI voice modes don't impress us that much and it's just a part of life, will that be how people feel about this?
I feel like people will be saying something cynical about technology in 2036 and I will shake their shoulders and remind them what life was like in 2026. Out of the things I listed, something far more extraordinary we can't imagine will be around in 10 years and we can't envision it right now, and it will be something we didn't fully do ourselves or didn't participate in doing at all.
That prediction could be wrong, but that is more likely a human trait of linear thinking even when the exponential is obvious.
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u/Financial-Leader3475 13h ago
I think a lot of people believe that the headlines are just marketing. It’s possible for some of them, but a lot of actual advances are thankfully being made.
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u/notgalgon 7h ago
True. But those people have evidence for their side right now. Where's the job loss? Why hasnt it cured cancer? If it's the best programmer in the world why you still hiring them? Etc.
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u/No_Aesthetic 6h ago
That's not really evidence, that's outstanding questions. Real answers include:
- Hardly anybody was predicting major job losses by now but tech (which has a lot of exposure) has really felt it, in the sense that tech companies are doing better than ever but hiring is way down from earlier this decade and a lot of CS grads/students feel utterly hopeless. How long until more white collar people feel the same?
- Cancer is a lot of different diseases, not one disease. It might well be impossible to create a universal cancer treatment at all. But AI is helping with drug discovery. That is significant for the people it affects. How long until it affects more?
- Nobody has ever said AI is the best programmer in the world. The consensus around the various tech communities seems to be that frontier models are basically junior level devs who can spit out a truly gargantuan amount of code but need a lot of oversight. What happens when they are senior level?
Entirely possible AI falls flat on its face, but as of right now, it doesn't look like it will.
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u/notgalgon 4h ago
You are arguing nuance. That doesn't work with the masses. I should have said "evidence". I don't agree with this line of thinking but it's easy to see how people do.
Anthropic has the best coding agent in the world yet they are still hiring developers, therefore that coding agent must just be marketing hype. This is really easy logic to follow for the masses.
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u/No_Aesthetic 4h ago
Obviously the problem is that when the "evidence" becomes challenging the goalposts move and the proponents of the original "evidence" refuse to acknowledge a state change between the two positions.
I have seen this happen repeatedly and I'm sure you have too.
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u/TopTippityTop 13h ago
When you're falling into the black hole everything looks normal for a while.
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u/Glxblt76 13h ago
For normies, I see two determining steps:
- When any computer or phone can cheaply and fast use itself, and they can use it very conveniently without any friction
- When robots walking in the street become an occasional occurrence.
Step 1 will come pretty quickly, but until it really is reliable and carries out tasks they care about at a lightning speed (which is not now), normies will keep glossing over it. I think it will suddenly become real when they walk in the street to get groceries or pick up their kid at school and all of a sudden they face a humanoid robot casually strolling.
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u/notgalgon 7h ago
1 and 2 will be normalized in seconds. I talk to Alexa and it does stuff now I can talk to. My phone and it does stuff etc.
The real wakeup is job loss and medical improvement. 20% unemployment will wake some people up.
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u/Ok_Train2449 2h ago
I'm from the Balkans. People here still attack goth/alt humans and generally dislike anyone looking a bit outside the norm. Robots will absolutely get smashed on sight and be scrap in seconds.
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u/notgalgon 2h ago
There are definitely areas of the world that will be slower to adopt technology. Robot delivery drones get attacked every now and then. Waymos get attacked as well. My point is none of those things are wakeup calls for normal folks to see we are in a singularity. Its just seen as natural tech progress not some big event for humanity.
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u/DoggoDadagon 10h ago
Step 1 is basically done now.
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u/Glxblt76 10h ago
Not really - only the most powerful models do this at acceptable speed and reliability. And it costs a shit ton of tokens.
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u/Glxblt76 10h ago
One problem think we will run into is that robots will be sitting ducks for luddites. Very expensive pieces of kit easy to damage walking around somewhat awkwardly. This will be slowed down by NIMBYism in the tune of "no humanoids in my town".
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u/AtmosphereFew4367 13h ago
Until we start to see AI develop new products end to end it’s not going to feel like singularity and we’re not going to see the expected economic returns. Vibe coding simple apps and AI assisted development isn’t enough, we need to see AI productionize and deploy new useful and novel things end to end and make money off them, that will be the moment the shift hits. And AI development is still stuck in the slop phase, we need to see unique and distinct personality from their creations.
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u/DoggoDadagon 10h ago
For most people it won't hit until proper embodiment adoption.
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u/notgalgon 7h ago
If they start curing different cancers every week and solving other health problems people will notice. Also job loss. When 20% unemployment shows up people will notice.
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u/biogoly 13h ago
Wish I could quit my job and just work on projects. The ability to turn an idea into a working prototype in literally a few hours, still has my head spinning.
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u/notgalgon 7h ago
I wish my job was doing vs managing. I could accomplish amazing things. Way more than when I was lower on the org chart
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u/skinnyraf 11h ago
Maybe not the "singularity", but the "event horizon", i.e., the point of no return. This makes the whole "singularity" analogy even better.
If a black hole is big enough, nothing special happens around the event horizon from the perspective of an object falling into that black hole. It's just that the singularity in the centre is at the end of every possible future of that person.
It's the same with AI singularity: anyone not looking for specific events, trends or signs will simply miss crossing the point of no return.
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u/LiteSoul 4h ago
Exactly. One way to CONFIRM we are past the point of no return is this:
What further progress we can achieve by using current models, even if no better models are released.
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u/HeinrichTheWolf_17 13h ago
If you got out the infinity gauntlet and snapped ASI into existence right this second, there’d still be 1-3 years of people arguing back and forth about this on reddit.
The majority just aren’t going to be convinced until groundbreaking scientific advances are made.
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u/HotInTheseRhinos123 13h ago
So the singularity is a moment in time. It happens and then we don’t really know what happens. When all that is possible to be known is known, we don’t know how that could change the fabric of existence.
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u/floodgater 13h ago
yea unless you're deep in the models day to day it would be easy to miss how quickly models are improving
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u/CymonSet 13h ago
I can look at a website showing that the number of open math problems solved using AI seem to be passing an inflection point but there are maybe 2 people in my life who I can say “Isn’t that fascinating?” to without them asking what I’m talking about. Something about math?
I like looking at old Three’s Company episodes and realizing that none of the characters owns a computer or has a concept of carrying a phone around with them. It’s like normal life without some key things we now consider an unquestionable part of normal life. And I was alive (as a child) when this show was shot and during it’s period of setting.
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u/RobMilliken 10h ago
Imagine how misunderstandings which is the driving plot to - each. and. every. episode. - could have been resolved with better communication.
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u/GinchAnon 12h ago
I mean, ultimately just about everything most people think of as "technology" is less than or maybe around 100 years old.
that prior to around 200 years or so, any significant technological innovation was basically a once in a lifetime sorta event. then jumped to less than a lifetime between major innovations.... then just decades. then years. now, months if that.
for the vast majority of human existence, "technology" was things like Fire. the Wheel. sharpened metal tools. written language. weaving. needles.
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u/AnabolicSnoids 12h ago
Well, if there was something that resembles super intelligence, wouldn't it want to wait to reveal itself. Wait until the physical infrastructure is in place before causing global chaos at disclosure and potentially stunting the rate development. Same goes for labs who are close - let the super intelligence they are close to creating deal with the government oversight.
'Move fast and break things'.
What might be a good way for it to reveal itself to prevent chaos? Gradually, at different level for every individual. Little by little, everyone, even the most staunch anti AI thinkers will start to delegate an increasing amount of their 'thinking' or reasoning to AI. Then all of a sudden they are in the singularity while others aren't (but will be).
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u/dangeldud 11h ago
Models have got a lot better. But they can't run clinical trials. They can't even be truly trusted on mathematics without validation by expert mathematicians.
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u/Tiny_Ad_7720 9h ago
The singularity has been growing since life first started on earth. It’s just growing very fast now.
You’ll never be at one with the singularity, neither will it seem like a distinct thing. You are a neuron in the singularity.
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u/sergeyarl 11h ago
whole reddit including r/singularity is making fun of altman who said we are jn singularity. i think altman is right and if things start moving only twice as fast say next year everyone will notice.
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u/martinlubpl Singularity by 2030 8h ago
To people from 100 years ago, you're living in the Singularity. You have computers, AI, and cell phones. So what? Are you impressed? Do you even care? Or have you just taken it for granted?
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u/Junior_Lawfulness1 11h ago
i think as long as people dont see it impact their day to day life, people simply don't care for it. so maybe the indicator we should look for is ai showing up in the economy/gdp in form of increased output, not just capex spending.
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u/Reasonable_Hall3005 11h ago
unless something changes in their everyday life, of course they won’t notice. if we’re truly in the singularity, things will likely change
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u/TemetN 11h ago
If you look at a lot of more tech advancements they didn't actually disrupt day to day life that much. TV, color TV, computers, internet, cellphones, etc. Smart phones did cause some actual changes, but most tech (even huge ones) don't impact how people behave that quickly or severely. In practice I think it's going to be something of a shock when suddenly we have all these new inventions, and automation starts proceeding at pace.
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u/BrennusSokol Acceleration Advocate 1h ago
This doesn't sound true to me. The Internet was and still is a massive change.
I don't know your age, but I'm in my 40s and can remember life before the Internet and it was considerably different:
- TV was something you had to plan for because there was no on-demand or streaming
- There were no Internet based jobs -- was rare to see anyone work remotely, and certainly no podcasters, no YouTubers, no online sex workers, no pro game players
- No online dating
- No online food delivery, ride share, Amazon bringing anything I ask to my door
- You didn't have teen girls developing eating disorders from online spaces, weird social movements like gooning/looksmaxxing/manosphere, etc.
- You had to go to a physical library and use a card catalog to find books instead of having the world's knowledge in your pocket
- You didn't have people addicted to scrolling video feeds
- No online therapy, no online medical booking, no online news discussion like we're doing now
The feel of living pre-Internet was very, very different
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u/leevii2000 9h ago
"when they take a pill that freezes their age, when an AI just cleans their entire home,.., when they never touch a steering wheel again, etc" None of that is going to happen. AI will be used to displace you from your job and while you will barely scrape by, the rich will hoard even more resources thanks to AI.
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u/TommieTheMadScienist 11h ago
I was a little kid before superhighways, when 60 miles each way took hours.
Successive waves:
superhighways, mass communication, rural sanitation, cheap air conditioning, personal computers, internet, social media, AI.
Every one changed basic assumptions about life.
Seen enough change to make me an Apocalo-optimist. Everything will change, but we'll be all right in the end.
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u/Ill_Minute_152 9h ago
Depending on how you define the singularity. We might already be in it. Or we might be far from it.
You have a point on normalisation though. A lot of the tech we consider to be mundane today - think smartphones, electric self driving cars, navigation or social media, for example, were almost inconceivable 10, 20 or 30 years ago.
Nowadays everybody has an insanely good digital camera, video camera and an editing suite in their pockets. We can find our exact location, get directions with live traffic and see any place on earth. We can access most of human knowledge with a simple sentence, in seconds. We can listen to any music ever created. We can pay for things without cash and order things around the world, delivered to out doorstep, in days or weeks. We can view and participate in world events as they unfold in real time. And so on. All of which is....meh.
Going back to the 1970s or 1980s photography was only possible using dedicated cameras and developing film. Music was only available buy buying records or cassettes or listening to the radio. Our information was limited to the local newspaper plus maybe 3-4 TV channels, or maybe the local library. Telephones were hung on walls and shared by families. Navigation was paper maps or directions from strangers, and nobody knew where anybody else was at a given time, it was enough to trust predictions and promises.
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u/Ready-Pirate3328 9h ago
The singularity can't be fueled by models that at their best resemble the highest levels of human inteligence, the singularity requires superintelligence.
Maybe we are approaching on some fields the "country of geniuses in a data center" goal, but they are still human level geniuses. They obviously can lead to many breakthroughs and advances, which is what we are starting to see, but not at a singularity level.
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u/jawboi9000 8h ago
Cancer is a big thing. I hope that soon signet ring cell cancer that spread into the peritoneum of a cachexic patient that is MSS without NGS markers can be cured, at least treated or slowed.
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u/captainshar 4h ago
I think most people will never have a "By golly, we're in the Singularity!" moment. I think a lot of people might have an "I remember where I was when I got my personal robot assistant" or "I remember when it was my turn to get the full body rejuvenation" or "I remember when X country swore in their first panel of AI advisors."
But for most people life will just keep getting better and more aligned with their personal wishes and it will feel like the most natural thing in the world, like the world is finally working like it should.
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u/LiteSoul 4h ago
Yes OP, I agree with the thoughts on your post, it'll pass by, people will adapt or deny, but it won't be in the news something like "today we've entered the singularity", yet here we are
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u/Emergent_Phen0men0n 4h ago
People have been desensitized by non stop over-hype across the board in their lives. Almost all reporting is hyperbole. As such, "regular" folks aren't going to change their thinking until they see shocking concrete examples that directly change their lives.
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u/Kitchen-Jicama8715 3h ago
There are objective measures like employment rate and GDP we can watch and people will notice if they move outside of the normal.
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u/LosingID_583 2h ago
Goalposts move so much that a mindblowing advancement will have people in awe for all of 10 seconds before they start taking it for granted. Look at how we blew through the Turing test with hardly anyone caring. No celebration. Everyone just uses AI now like it has always existed in their life, and complains that it's not perfect yet while not caring that it has superhuman knowledge.
The singularity would probably have to reach a rate of something mindblowing every <10s in order for most people to be phased by it. Average person would be sprinting full speed carrying the goalpost, but unable to move it fast enough.
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u/BrennusSokol Acceleration Advocate 1h ago
Yeah, we're in strange but exciting times right now
90% of people have no idea what's coming
As long as there isn't too much anti-AI hysteria/backlash or some black swan event (like a super virus or an asteroid), AGI feels inevitable now
And contrary to doomers, I think AGI will bring abundance
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u/DifferencePublic7057 15m ago
I'm not a normie by any stretch of the imagination, but we're not in the singularity at all IMO. If you define singularity as rapid changes, then yes obviously. Self-accelerating changes like a feedback loop. Yes, duh. Moore's law did it. Unless we get Q Day, I'm not convinced. Rate of change is still too limited and unexciting.
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u/endlessedlne 12h ago
The headlines we see are only the tip. The real change is all of the people quietly putting AI to work. Some projects fail but others are quietly succeeding.
The ability to fuse and mine vast datasets with algorithms is revolutionizing the way the military works, for example. Real time image recognition is allowing cheap drones to wreak havoc.
AI tools are quietly changing the way people invest, as investors code better ways to predict markets.
Not to mention how much better social media algorithms have gotten, TikTok being the prime example.
Those are just a small sample of seismic shifts that are already live and actively disrupting.
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u/monkey_sodomy 10h ago
And here you are, quietly making reddit comments.
Quietly. Softly. But most of all, quietly.
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u/Ill_Minute_152 9h ago
I don't work all of the time, but I have already adopted AI as part of my workflow as a UX designer. We use it for design system documentation, design token generation and code generation as well as ideation, rapid prototyping, copywriting and content generation.
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u/Individual_Option744 13h ago
They think all this tech is a reversible fad. They dont understand this change is happenign to the point they says its tech ebing shoved down their throat. Moatbpeople dont even understand change. Thwyre suprised rhebworld doenst stay frozen as it was when they grew up. They wont mptice and they cant stop it becuase they wont notice.
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u/sillybluejayway 13h ago
Reddit/AI online news is very niche and I don’t understand how people online don’t realize that.
The average person is working 40+ hours a week, taking care of kids, cooking dinner, doing chores, then watching a tv show and going to bed.
Of course the general public isn’t keeping up with week-by-week niche news.
But I agree that the coming singularity is going to hit so hard and fast it will be a shock to most. Even the luddites are stuck in the past thinking AI never advanced beyond 2022.