the year before takeoff
Dwarkesh Patel, in one of his latest episodes, predicts agents that are better than any human on any task as soon as next year, likely by 2030. I'm reminded of the fable of the dragon-tyrant, and of the many reddit comments and posts from terminal patients, hoping for a quick AI takeoff, lamenting the irony and sadness of dying just before a machine that will invent all cures. I'm not qualified to comment on the probability assignments over the possible AI futures, but the feeling this stirs is interesting regardless.
I'm past my physical peak, my body has already aged irreversibly, my body decay rate is probably even accelerating by now. Damage is accumulating irreversibly in my cells and organs, hair is losing its pigment, follicles are miniaturising and dying, retinas are slacking, limbs are losing their muscles, the machine is creaking as nuts and bolts are loosening and coming undone, maybe a cancerous cell somewhere has already escaped detection and is quietly planning its own takeover. Experiencing aging on oneself is horrible, seeing it on people we love is even worse than that, whatever that feeling is. It drains one of any hope and strength.
The sense of urgency increases with the likelihood of a future full of infinite health. Slowing down our decay rate seems a sensible strategy: but what about those of us that know intimately that, for them, it's already too late?
I wonder if the agglutinative Japanese and Finnish or the compounding German have a word for this feeling, the melancholy of losing something precious and dear moments before it can be saved and it won't be lost anymore ever again. To preserve some dignity I decide to not ask Gemini about it and instead ask future readers for help. I propose the sentence "watching the sunset the evening before solstice" as a mental image or capsule for this feeling, and will wait for a kind German or Finnish or Japanese reader to translate.