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Historic trends in chess AI

The Elo rating of the best chess program measured by the Swedish Chess Computer Association did not contain any greater than 10-year discontinuities between 1984 and 2018. A four year discontinuity in 2008 was notable

Effect of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin on historic trends in cotton ginning

We estimate that Eli Whitney’s cotton gin represented a 10 to 25 year discontinuity in pounds of cotton ginned per person per day, in 1793. Two innovations in 1747 and 1788 look like discontinuities of

Historic trends in flight airspeed records

Flight airspeed records between 1903 and 1976 contained one greater than 10-year discontinuity: a 19-year discontinuity corresponding to the Fairey Delta 2 flight in 1956. The average annual growth in flight airspeed markedly increased with

Comparison of naturally evolved and engineered solutions

This page describes a project that is in progress, and does not yet have results We are comparing naturally evolved and engineered solutions to problems, to learn about regularities that might let us make inferences

Walsh 2017 survey

Toby Walsh surveyed hundreds of experts and non-experts in 2016 and found their median estimates for ‘when a computer might be able to carry out most human professions at least as well as a typical

Conversation with Adam Gleave

AI Impacts talked to AI safety researcher Adam Gleave about his views on AI risk. With his permission, we have transcribed this interview. Participants Adam Gleave — PhD student at the Center for Human-Compatible AI,

Historic trends in ship size

This page may be out-of-date. Visit the updated version of this page on our wiki. Trends for ship tonnage (builder’s old measurement) and ship displacement for Royal Navy first rate line-of-battle ships saw eleven and

Effects of breech loading rifles on historic trends in firearm progress

Published Feb 7 2020 We do not know if breech loading rifles represented a discontinuity in military strength. They probably did not represent a discontinuity in fire rate. Details This case study is part of

Historic trends in transatlantic passenger travel

The speed of human travel across the Atlantic Ocean has seen at least seven discontinuities of more than ten years’ progress at past rates, two of which represented more than one hundred years’ progress at

Conversation with Robin Hanson

AI Impacts talked to economist Robin Hanson about his views on AI risk and timelines. With his permission, we have posted and transcribed this interview. Participants Robin Hanson — Associate Professor of Economics, George Mason