What's growing exponentially is the inputs, not intelligence itself
binarybits · x · 2026-09-09
Pushing back on the popular claim that AI is improving exponentially, binarybits argues that what's actually growing exponentially are the inputs — compute, data, spending. Intelligence itself has no cardinal measure, so "exponentially increasing intelligence" isn't even a well-defined statement.
The takeaway: conflating exponential scaling of inputs with exponential gains in capability is a category error baked into much AI-progress commentary.
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