Technological Richter Scale: AI Impact by 2040

Many high TRS forecasters argue that, because AI will augment and eventually surpass human intelligence, its transformative potential is unique and eclipses all prior transformative technologies. “Intelligence is one of the most disruptive phenomena known to history,” writes one. High TRS forecasts also tend to argue that progress in intelligence builds on itself: “People fundamentally don't think in exponentials. 2040 is a LONG time away, technologically. And AI will modify AI, at which point its improvement will go even more second-order.”

Most high TRS forecasters believe AI has already surpassed levels 5 and 6. Many argue level 7 has already been met given its use in specialized fields (e.g., medical imaging, SWE, text editing, etc.) and its level of diffusion. Some even argue it can be credibly claimed that advanced capitalist societies have already reached level 8, given that “AI is strongly affecting geo-political considerations, changing energy demand and planning, disrupting education, [and] accelerating biomedical research.” Many argue that even a slow, linear extrapolation of current trendlines suggests level 8 or higher by 2040, especially given that much of the existing potential of this new technology has yet to be adopted by society. Low TRS forecasters often view current AI as roughly level 5 or 6, essentially “an extension of the Internet.”

The main argument from low TRS forecasters is that progress will be substantially slowed by implementation constraints that are difficult to overcome with software improvements. One notes, “There likely exist thousands (millions?) of potential bottlenecks in the economy which will only become legible as other processes are sped up by orders of magnitude.” Low TRS forecasters expect that many of these bottlenecks will be input bottlenecks, like energy, production capacity, and chip availability.

High TRS forecasters frequently emphasize AI's rapid adoption rate compared to historical technologies, noting that it is “much faster than it was for prior technologies.” Several low TRS forecasters, however, argue that historical precedent remains relevant: “The integrated circuit took about 15 years to change electronics. Computers took about 25 years. The Internet took 15 years to produce the WWW and another 10 or 15 years to change lives.” Some low TRS forecasters also argue that, even if AI is proceeding on a faster diffusion timeline than other transformative technologies, the higher TRS levels require not only technical breakthroughs, but also changes to our political, economic, regulatory, and cultural structures.

Some high TRS forecasters see AI fundamentally restructuring society. One writes, “[Just as] the industrial revolution helped usher in capitalism, because it was an economic system that was compatible with that type of transformation, AI—being a technology that has the potential to replace human labor in most fields—might force societies to shift to a new economic model, which would place it at level 9.” But most low TRS forecasters question whether AI will deliver enough tangible benefits to lead to such a transformation: “The average citizen will not have much benefit to buy from AI. Improved games or art? Cheaper manufactured goods? A robot to clean your house? How does AI deliver things that humans want, like better, cheaper healthcare?”