In the non-Yudkowsky timeline, AI is slightly slower but gradient descent gets found anyway
enormochungus · x · 2026-10-13
In a counterfactual debate about EA/Yudkowsky's influence, user enormochungus argues that without the Yudkowsky timeline we'd only get moderately slower AI capabilities — gradient descent would be discovered anyway. This follows jdpressman's point that the EA segment behind Anthropic wouldn't have been deterred by the proposed alternatives.
Related event: Counterfactual Debate: How Yudkowsky and EA Shaped Anthropic(2 posts)→