This is a hasty speculative fiction vignette of one way I expect we might get AGI by January 2025 (within about one year of writing this). Like similar works by others, I expect most of the guesses herein to turn out incorrect. However, this was still useful for expanding my imagination about what could happen to enable very short timelines, and I hope it's also useful to you.

The assistant opened the door, and I walked into Director Yarden's austere office. For the Director of a major new federal institute, her working space was surprisingly devoid of possessions. But I suppose the DHS's Superintelligence Defense Institute was only created last week.

“You’re Doctor Browning?” Yarden asked from her desk.

“Yes, Director,” I replied.

“Take a seat,” she said, gesturing. I complied as the lights flickered ominously. “Happy New Year, thanks for coming,” she said. “I called you in today [...]

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First published:
December 17th, 2023

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xLDwCemt5qvchzgHd/scale-was-all-we-needed-at-first

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.