Qiaochu Yuan: In 2026 an AI paradigm shift lands every 1-5 days
sebkrier · x · 2026-09-11
Qiaochu Yuan argues we should drop the lazy assumption that anything sounding sci-fi is prima facie ridiculous. Almost everything about AI capabilities as of September 2026 would have read as science fiction in any prior year — verifiable by comparing expert forecasts from 2025 or earlier, reactions to AI 2027, or old sci-fi depicting what modern AI can now do.
He traces the genre's roots: golden-age sci-fi authors like Heinlein, Campbell and Asimov themselves lived through an age of wonders, so sci-fi was projection of reality rather than pure fantasy. In a follow-up he notes that following AI Twitter in 2026 means witnessing an event that would have been a cataclysmic paradigm shift in any previous year every 1-5 days.
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