The Dynamics of Intelligence Explosions

Abstract:AI is increasingly being used to help with AI R&D. Under certain conditions this feedback loop might be able to produce an intelligence explosion, with rapidly escalating AI capabilities. I explore the mathematics of the most explosive possibilities, with an eye to understanding what drives the dynamics. I show that singular growth (towards a vertical asymptote) is harder to achieve than would be expected from recent economics-inspired modelling, and that there is an important but neglected class of growth rates that are faster than exponential but don't lead to a vertical asymptote. I draw out the generation time (the time to go around the feedback loop) as a neglected parameter that plays a pivotal role in determining the behaviour of any intelligence explosion --- one cannot have singular growth unless the generation time rapidly approaches zero.

Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Theoretical Economics (econ.TH)

arXiv:2608.14426 [cs.AI]

(or arXiv:2608.14426v1 [cs.AI] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.14426 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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