upvote
These things aren't really unpredictable. Work long enough on a robot with more dexterity and you will get just that. The timetable on when it happens is a bit more up in the air, economic downturns and wars can have huge impacts on it.

But in my mind robots and superintelligence are inevitable unless there is a massive setback in humanity before then. Nature already did it once. We're not inventing something totally new. Add in every new invention and bit of intelligence we build on and actualize pushes us that much closer to the goal. Information technology allows this to speed up even further with easy sharing of information and testing.

Superintelligence is not like faster than light travel. We have many frameworks that show us FTL is impossible. I don't believe there is a single widely accepted framework that shows there is some limit to intelligence and we're near it. Intelligence isn't even a singular thing. My calculator is a super intelligent adder compared to me. It would seem highly improbable that somehow nature random walked into making brains the most efficient general intelligence device in all dimensions and scales.

reply