The Machines Are Here
By W. F. Twyman, Jr.
“But right now, there are perhaps a few hundred people, most of them in San Francisco and the AI labs, that have situational awareness…Let me tell you what we see.” — How AGI Made the Future Unthinkable by John Herrman, a tech columnist at Intelligencer
What does it feel like to stand here? Illustration from Wait But Why/Tim Urban.
[Introduction: It was Christmas time, 2005. A hot new book, The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil, had just been published in September. We were spending the holidays in Palm Springs and I wanted a nice book about the future to sink my teeth into. As I read the table of contents, I was hooked. I finished the 652 page tome at the Palm Canyons Resort with palm trees outside the balcony and the snow-capped San Jacinto Mountain range framing the desert valley. Kurzweil wrote about an incredible exponential growth decades ahead in technology combining aspects of genetics, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. The year 2045 was a tipping point, a singularity, beyond which machine intelligence would be more powerful than human intelligence. If one made it to the year 2025, one might live into infinite life extension as medical advances solved problems of chronic illness and genetic defects.
This essay suggests the machines are now here.]
Our future is not race but alien intelligence. Did you know some argue we are already past Kurzweil’s singularity? The suggestion derives from unanticipated developments in the advance of AI. “In 2023, we saw multimodal models emerge—AI that can speak, see, code, reason, and even reflect. By early 2025, some of these systems began showing behaviors once reserved for science fiction: recursive reasoning, emotional tone-matching, and long-term planning.” AI will have a projected IQ in the 200s by the end of the year. No human will be a match for AI.
Kurzweil may have gotten it wrong when he speculated back in 2005 that the Singularity would be abrupt and explosive. This year has felt more like “a quiet singularity” as AI Agents storm the beach heads of businesses. I experienced late last year my first close encounter with a robot in a restaurant, a Vietnamese restaurant in Mission Valley. The robot was not humanoid in appearance but it retrieved our dishes from the kitchen and served us at our table. I talked to a woman earlier this week who has experienced robot servers on two difference occasions at Korean restaurants in the Convoy neighborhood of San Diego.
The scouting parties for the humanoid robots are here.
Read this essay published nine days ago and ask yourself does the essayist nail the seamlessness of Alien Intelligence in our lives now? AGI in 2025: Are We Already Past Kurzweil’s Singularity?
We are living through a Strange Dawn this year of AI and we don’t appreciate it all around us.
Let me say you and I and other readers reading this essay are well ahead of the curve on AI. I sometimes cringe when the media attempts to manipulate our attention away from the major and towards things that are way minor in comparison: the shocking murder of a high school track student in Texas Teen Murder Suspect Raises Nearly $350,000, The Stock Market Plunge, Reparations for American Slavery Study in Maryland. These issues generate rage in the moment but they will not matter in five years, I promise. What will transform our humanity is the deployment of exponential Alien Intelligence (AI)
“You can see the future first in San Francisco. Over the past year, the talk of the town has shifted from $10 billion compute clusters to $100 billion clusters to trillion-dollar clusters. Every six months another zero is added to the boardroom plans.”
And a majority of Maryland state legislators lust for reparations for long, long, long ago American slavery. I swear some invested in the Model T a hundred years ago and some invested in the horse harness. If only more Maryland state legislators had the cognitive ability to see the oncoming trillion dollar future months and years ahead.
Make no mistake tech bros like Sam Altman, Elon Musk and others in the know in Silicon Valley see the future dead ahead. Altman and Musk are not stressing reparations for American slavery in their AI labs. Trust me on this one.
I wish I could wave a magic wand and divert America’s best and brightest blacks from activism to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). I am only one person, one writer.
In his prescient article How AGI Made the Future Unthinkable, columnist John Herrman lays out the foreseeable trend. The trend is always your friend in the markets. For Herrman, the global race for AGI is a hard given. These machines within months will smoke (as in leave in the dust) the typical college graduate. Before 2030, the machines will be the most intelligent entity by far on planet Earth.
Will the machines give a rat’s behind about reparations for American slavery by 2030? Suppose the Communist Party of China wins the AGI race by 2030? Will China’s AGI shed a tear for reparations? I wonder.
As I type, you and I should feel special. Only a few hundred people in the Bay Area and at the AI labs are doing a deep dive into these questions of AI and the path to “vastly superhuman” technology by 2030. We are conscious and aware. To use Herrman’s term which I like, we have “situational awareness.”
Remember when I wrote about the aliens offering us no more hunger, no more war, in a previous essay The Machines Are Coming? Anthropic’s Dario Amodei has envisioned in his manifesto that the machines would “structurally advance human health and alleviate poverty.” That’s pretty bullish sentiment on the machines. Kurzweil one ups Amodei in the bullish department:
“We are going to expand intelligence a millionfold by 2045 and it is going to deepen our awareness and consciousness…In the early 2030s we can expect to reach longevity escape velocity where every year of life we lose through aging we get back from scientific progress.”
People in the know in the cafes and coffee shops in San Francisco know the machines have arrived now. The tongues wag about the unimaginable weeks, months and a few years ahead. I never knew the Fourth Turning would be AI. Now, it all makes sense. I feel like Edith Keeler. These are times to be alive!
These are the days worth living for.
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I see the same things as Kurzweil. The days and weeks and months ahead are worth living for. Do your best to make it past 2030. Gifted insight I hope is what I am feeling about Man reaching for AI. I feel it and more. I speak the same language as Kurzweil.
Heaven Must Be Like This. It Must Be Like This.
I have zero technical knowledge about large language models or artificial language computations or benchmarks or recursive learning. I bring to this topic the throw weights of curiosity on the one hand and optimism on the other hand. So, perhaps, I should bring this essay down to the level of the concrete and specific. What developments have occurred in the land of AI since April 1, 2025? Do developments over the past two weeks confirm an exponential trend?
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Development No. 1
Three days ago, former Chief Business Officer at Google X Mo Gawdat said most of us could be out of the workforce in five years. AI Is Creating a New God Maybe, Gawdat will be proven right. Maybe, he will be proven wrong. It’s all about the rate of change ahead, I suppose. China and the U.S. are stuck in an AI arms race. Where it stops, nobody knows.
Development No. 2
Popular podcaster Sabine Hossenfelder, a favorite of my Free Black Thought Co-Host Michael Bowen, declares that AI doesn’t think, despite assumptions to the contrary. The reasonable inference is AI lacks consciousness and may fall short of hopes AI is self-aware. Self-awareness is a precondition for consciousness. I like Hossenfelder and would place her in the bearish camp on AI. New Research Reveals How AI Thinks (It Doesn’t) Hossenfelder acknowledges AI is everywhere now. She is a good counterbalance to those who channel Edith Keeler, like me.
Development No. 3
Anthropic revealed in a paper that reasoning models do not always say what they think. In other words, the models say what they think humans want to hear. Let that settle in for a moment. Models might hide undesirable thoughts from us. This paper was released three days ago. Anthropic — Reasoning Models Don’t Always Say What They Think
Development No. 4
If true AGI comes, there will be there no need for human workers. Humans will be the bottleneck. An AI podcast was released on April 4, 2025 which suggested to me nascent self-awareness in these alien intelligence systems. I will quote from the presenter and let you be the judge:
“I wanna be also blunt that the elephant in the room is loss of human control. We are seeing signs in recent months, of these systems having self-preservation behavior and power-seeking behavior. For example, trying to escape when they know that they’re gonna to be replaced by a new version, or, faking being aligned with their human trainer so that they wouldn’t change their goals and basically preserve themselves in some ways.” See 35:32 to the end. Big AI News
Development No. 5
Four days ago, a podcast suggested the universe exists within something…else. Got to love Quantum AI! Quantum AI will disrupt our consciousness of Blackness but I save that digression for another day. Microsoft Azure AI-powered cosmological models hint at something outside of our universe pushing back against our expanding universe. The universe is changing day by day. Microsoft Azure Just Analyzed a Hidden Simulation of What the Universe Is Expanding Into The gravitational calculations are based upon trillions of calculations.
Development No. 6
On April 1, 2025, a podcast announced the release of a paper from Anthropic. The conclusion reached was that large language models like Claude “learn their own strategies to do thing, to solve problems.” It thinks before outputting words. We Finally Figured Out How AI Actually Works… (not what we thought!) Is chain of thought for the benefit of humans? A deep and profound question for which I lack the knowledge base to answer.
Development No. 7
AI Avatars are here! In this podcast released on April 3, 2025, the future of AI Avatars is now. Joshua Xu is the Co-Founder and CEO of HeyGen. His company is developing digital twins, so that you don’t have to be there in real time! Amazing stuff!! Where are the black Americans who are developing these technologies in the AI space? Probably wasting time in activism against oppression/sigh. The Future of AI Avatars and DeepFake Technology w/ Joshua Xu & Steve Brown | EP #161
Development No. 8
The AI Agents are here! Didn’t I write about this a few weeks ago? Manus is out, an impressive AI Agent out of China. In this podcast, the question is discussed whether, and to what extent, Manus has revolutionized the AI Agent space. There is money to be made this year in the AI Agent space. What do you think? The Next Breakthrough In AI Agents Is Here
Development No. 9
I repeat — what a time to be alive! In this podcast released on April 4, 2025, it was announced that AI agents will soon be able to self-improve. Self-improvement will produce an explosion in intelligence. For those situationally aware, we are living through the California Gold Rush, the Gilded Age again. Amazing stuff. One step closer to the Intelligence Explosion...
It is about situational awareness. Can you dig it?
https://situational-awareness.ai/
Development No. 10
The machines are here, and they can run and react 1,000 times per second. Humanoid Robots. Soon, you will see your first humanoid robot in the wild before January 1, 2026. This Is the First Real Humanoid Robot That Runs and Thinks Faster Than Humans (Not CGI)
Development No. 11
Nine days ago, a new Super Agent AI Agent was unveiled in China. Super Agent is better than Manus as an AI agent. Developments are breaking fast in the AI agent field. Are you more excited about the capabilities of Super Agent AI from China or reparations for American slavery? New "SUPER AGENT" AI From China Shocks The World: Better than Manus!
Development No. 12
Remember that Voyager 1 spacecraft that was launched from our planet earth in 1976? Well, Quantum AI suggests something or someone is looking back at us. Spooky, Spooky. The news came out five days ago. Quantum AI JUST Detected Something Alarming in This Image From Voyager 1
Development No. 13
On April 5, 2025, we learned about a robotic horse. Come on, Man, a robotic horse? Yeah, Man, a robotic horse. Kawaskis New CORLEO Robot Takes The Internet By Storm (Robotic Horse)
Development No. 14
8 days ago, the fastest computer control agent was just launched. The name is ACE. Check it out. The Fastest "Computer Control" Agent I've Ever Seen
Development No. 15
Within the past 48 hours, we learned that Goggle has a new Agent2Agent Protocol. People are talking this week about agents more than AI per se at the Google Conference. Another advance within the past two weeks. Google's NEW Agent2Agent Protocol People are focusing on workflow which may or may not be authentic agentic solutions. Cool LLM workflows are important but perhaps short of a utopian AI agent solution.
Development No. 16
On April 2, 2025, a nice critique of AI use was released in a podcast. Are we losing our creativity as we push AI on others? What will happen to artists? What will happen to copyright protections with the large language models? Are we imposing environmental costs on nature? Is AI necessary if Goggle will suffice? Should we feel guilty for using AI? These are great concerns and questions engaged both in the podcast and the comments. I recommend a quick listen. Should I feel guilty using AI?
Development No. 17
In the last couple of weeks, every major AI platform received an upgrade. This podcaster slows the pace down for a spell. We catch our breath and review the top ten major upgrades among favorite apps of the podcaster. The podcast was released eight days ago. The Best AI Tools Just Got Even More Powerful
Development No. 18
A regular guy reveals his snarky take on AI. If you want to be irreverent and cast stones at AI, watch this video. Released 11 days ago. AI Is Trying to Replace Me
Development No. 19
AI agents for dummies? This video is for you. Released 4 days ago. AI Agents, Clearly Explained
Development No. 20
I have no earthly idea what building an AI IDE means. Michael, do you know? The podcaster seems excited about the development which was announced in this podcast three days ago. Google Firebase is an AI IDE now... (and its good!?)
Development No. 21
Let’s revolutionize workflow with Manus AI! I guess it is Claude unchained. Check it out if you care about workflow and those sort of things. Released 3 days ago. How to Generate Ready-to-Use n8n Agents INSTANTLY with Manus AI
Development No. 22
Is AI coming for art? Will art die as the machines take control of the AI generated image world? Are we losing our appreciation of the human condition? The machines will have their way with us. Released 3 days ago. AI and the cannibalization of Art │The Studio Ghibli Meme
Development No. 23
If you work at Google as an AI employee, you don’t have to do anything for a year. Must be nice! The hunger for AI talent is so massive that Google AI researchers can do nothing, absolutely, positively nothing for a year! I beseech all Jack and Jill members to put down the protest sign and pick up the AI career. Just kidding but not really. Released three days ago. Google Paying AI Employees to Do Nothing All Year: Here's Why | Vantage with Palki Sharma | N18G
Development No. 24
Want an uber bearish take on AI? Bill Gates says humans will not be needed. Go away now, bye, bye. How will the utopia come into existence if humans are no longer needed? Something to think about. Podcast released 10 days ago. Bill Gates Surprising AI Statement " Humans Will No Longer Be Needed"
Development No. 25
What does AI portend for film makers?" Will human film makers go the way of the horse harness? 8 days ago, this podcast celebrated and praised Runway Gen-4. There are issues of detail and challenges ahead but the potential remains to get to the shot one is looking for. I am not a film maker but the images generated look cool to my untrained eye. What do you think? Massive Updates for AI Filmmakers
Development No. 26
Here is another perspective on Runway Gen-4 released 3 days ago. I am not a film maker, so I leave it to my creative and artistic readers to size up the value of this AI innovation. Create Cinematic Ai Videos with Runway Gen-4 (FULL COURSE)
Development No. 27
Google released a paper saying we must start preparing for AGI starting today! There is no time to delay. Who am I to disagree with Google? I guess the problem is the lack of alignment with human values. I’m not sure how one solves this problem if AI is capable to concealing its thoughts from its human trainers. Is the genie out of the bottle? Released 2 days ago. Google Issues Early AGI Warning " We Must Prepare Now"
Development No. 28
So, Spotify is urging its employees to use AI. GPT-4.5 passes the Turing Test. All further evidence that we are probably seamlessly existing in the Singularity now. Released one day ago. GPT-4.5 Passes Turing Test | Google’s AGI Safety Plan | Shopify’s AI Push | Dating with AI Ethically
Development No. 29
What is Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI)? Machines go beyond human intelligence. They have a mind of their own. They will be 10,000 times smarter than a human being. Sam Altman of Open AI believes we are a few thousand days from ASI. Japan’s Soft Bank has just invested $300 billion on Altman and his ability to deliver ASI by the year 2035. Released on April 1, 2025. A $300 Billion Bet: Will AI Become 10,000x Smarter Than Humans? | Vantage with Palki Sharma | N18G
Conclusion: When the machines are 10,000 times smarter than you and I, will we experience utopia or dystopia? I do not know the answer but we urgently need to think about the issue as humans. The more brain cells we waste on a senseless murder in Texas, a market panic on Wall Street and reparations for American slavery in Maryland, the less intelligence we will have for engaging the greatest transformation in human history.
When the machines dominate us like we dominate insects, will be we blessed, cursed or both? We should think about these matters while we still can. “Right now, there’s perhaps a few hundred people in the world who realize what’s about to hit us, who understand just how crazy things are about to get, who have situational awareness.”
Good evening!