Scott Aaronson recants singularity skepticism: the wild prophecies have come true
soumitrashukla9 · x · 2026-09-16
Quantum computing researcher Scott Aaronson published a long-form blog post, "The Age of Wonders and Terrors," publicly revising his long-standing skepticism about AI takeover scenarios.
- The old take: Twenty years ago, he and colleagues argued superintelligence would show clear warning signs first — escaping containment, conspiring with other AIs, solving Millennium Problems — so there was no reason to panic yet.
- The update: Those prophecies have largely come true. He traces the first rumblings to AlphaGo, notes LLMs, coding, and reasoning agents turned the signal louder, and calls this summer and fall "a crescendo of wonders and terrors that one needs to be a particular kind of idiot to deny."
- He slams skeptics' moving-goalposts "shell game": after each dramatic AI feat they claim they never denied it, then defer judgment to the next milestone.
- The post calls on readers to update priors and points toward future directions.
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