Science argument

In debates about AI takeoff, the science argument is an argument for expecting a small number of breakthroughs for AGI, which in turn supports a hard takeoff. The argument states that the scientific method is a general "architectural insight" which allowed humans to suddenly have much more control over the world, and that we should expect something like that to happen with AI as well: that there is some sort of core insight that allows an AI to suddenly have much more control over the world, rather than gaining capability through a bunch of incremental progress. [1] (search "you look at human civilization and there's this core trick called science") See (5) in [2] for Robin Hanson's response.

History

The first instance of the argument found so far is by Eliezer Yudkowsky during the Jane Street debate with Robin Hanson (2011).