Episode Details

Epistemic status: Wrote this pretty fast, probably ~70% confident some version of the thesis claim is true, would welcome being proven demonstrably wrong.

Context: I’m a grantmaker focused on alt-protein and am fairly well-connected/moderately in the loop of what animal welfare grantmakers are doing.

This post was significantly inspired by “You (Yes You) Should Have A Feb 2020 Checklist For AI Policy,” which is more geared for the existing AI safety crowd but directionally a good push in general.

Thesis: I think EA non-GCR grantmakers should probably be doing more to prepare for AGI/TAI than we are, and might be on track to get caught with our pants around our legs within the next few years. We are not acting as if we’ve priced it in.

TAI Soon

Short timelines to AGI/TAI seem very plausible (like, at least 50% chance of arrival in the next 1 to 6 years). Points of evidence include:

1. The general shortening of timelines by top forecasters across the last 10 months (Kokotajlo/AI Futures Project, Greenblatt, Cotra);
2. The OpenAI HuggingFace warning shot;
3. Various public statements by frontier labs, their employees, and their executives warning about imminent recursive self improvement in 2027 or 2028;
4. Mythos saturating the METR time horizons evaluation months ago such [...]

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First published:
August 15th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KiunDmsxsr7dnTdbm/non-ai-grantmakers-should-be-pricing-in-agi-timelines-more

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.