defines slow takeoff

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# [The sideways view](https://sideways-view.com/)

## Looking askance at reality

Futurists have argued for years about whether the development of AGI will look more like a breakthrough within a small group (“fast takeoff”), or a continuous acceleration distributed across the broader economy or a large firm (“slow takeoff”).

I currently think a slow takeoff is significantly more likely. This post explains some of my reasoning and why I think it matters. Mostly the post lists arguments I often hear for a fast takeoff and explains why I don’t find them compelling.

(Note: this is _not_ a post about whether an intelligence explosion will occur. That seems very likely to me. Quantitatively I expect it to go [along these lines](https://sideways-view.com/2017/10/04/hyperbolic-growth/). So e.g. while I disagree with many of the claims and assumptions in [Intelligence Explosion Microeconomics](https://intelligence.org/files/IEM.pdf), I don’t disagree with the central thesis or with most of the arguments.)

(See also: [AI Impacts page](https://aiimpacts.org/likelihood-of-discontinuous-progress-around-the-development-of-agi/) on the same topic.)

### Slow takeoff

#### **Slower takeoff means faster progress**

Fast takeoff is often justified by pointing to the incredible transformative potential of intelligence; by enumerating the many ways in which AI systems will outperform humans; by pointing to historical examples of rapid change; _etc._

This gives the impression that people who expect a slow takeoff think AI will have a smaller impact, or will take longer to transform society.

But I think that’s backwards. The main disagreement is not about what will happen once we have a superintelligent AI, it’s about what will happen _before_ we have a superintelligent AI. So slow takeoff seems to mean that AI has a larger impact on the world, sooner.

![TakeoffImage.001](https://sideways-view.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/takeoffimage-0011.png?w=748)

In the fast takeoff scenario, weaker AI systems may have significant impacts but they are nothing compared to the “real” AGI. Whoever builds AGI has a decisive strategic advantage. Growth accelerates from 3%/year to 3000%/year without stopping at 30%/year. And so on.

In the slow takeoff scenario, pre-AGI systems have a transformative impact that’s only slightly smaller than AGI. AGI appears in a world where everything already happens incomprehensibly quickly and everyone is incredibly powerful. Being 12 months ahead in AGI might get you a decisive strategic advantage, but the world has accelerated so much that that’s just about as hard as getting to airplanes 30 years before anyone else.

#### **Operationalizing slow takeoff**

_There will be a complete 4 year interval in which world output doubles, before the first 1 year interval in which world output doubles. (Similarly, we’ll see an 8 year doubling before a 2 year doubling, etc.

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