I agree with most of that, but I think based on current trends we should anticipate that human-like ("human level") artificial general intelligence will be created within less than 10 years. And not too long after that happens, we must assume that there will be AIs that are tuned or turbo-charged so that they can perform better than humans in specific areas like programming. And not too long after that, there will be competition between multiple such AIs being sold to replace humans. And then prices will be reduced and you will be able to buy 10 of these 50X AI programmers for the cost of one human programmer. Then no one will have human programmer employees except for the novelty of it.
> I think based on current trends we should anticipate that human-like ("human level") artificial general intelligence will be created within less than 10 years
Why? People have been saying this since the 1960s, so much so it's become a running joke. And some of them were very smart people too, like Marvin Minsky.
What is it about AI that creates this illusion of progress (or at least, wild overestimation of progress)?
"Wild overestimation of progress" has been part of the story for many technologies.
Minsky was very optimistic, and then he got burned by the AI winter, and became very pessimistic about AI.
There is quite a lot of very serious investment aimed at this type of 'real' AI now. For example Deep Mind, DARPA L2M, recent $100 billion Vision Fund that Softbank's founder said was intended to bring about the singularity.
I believe it because I can basically see how to handle most of the challenges using embodiment or virtual embodiment and interactive learning/L2M etc., by combining or taking inspiration from various techniques that have been published. Stuff like this:
(cognitive architecture)
"OpenPsi: Realizing D¨orner’s ”Psi” Cognitive Model in the OpenCog Integrative AGI Architecture"
http://goertzel.org/OpenPsi_agi_11.pdf
