Josh Purtell: thousands of easy research combos would make software-only takeoff obvious
oecolamp · x · 2026-10-07
Josh Purtell argues that in a world with thousands of advances requiring only N-S level creative combination of past research plus experimentation, software-only takeoff follows obviously; if there are only a few, it becomes much harder.
A notable framing of the takeoff debate: the key variable is the density of low-hanging research opportunities, not optimization skill alone.
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