Ray Kurzweil discusses the longevity escape velocity which is very interesting. At this time of history, intelligence escape velocity might be relevant. We humans are constrained by several factors to proceed slowly with intelligence. Artificial intelligence might change the premises of human endeavors so that we may reach the intelligence escape velocity, to be freed from the gravitational pull of the sphere of mediocrity.
There are some fundamental limits to what we can do as humans intellectually.
First, each generation needs to learn knowledge in a field from scratch, so that in order to reach a point where you can start doing original research you need to have spent some years learning. An experienced researcher might have the advantage of accumulated knowledge and quality judgments, but his or her life is limited (here you have an interesting link to the longevity escape velocity). When a person passes away, the knowledge base is reset, except for the written records, which the next generation again learns from scratch.
Second, we have our ego. Although intellectual endeavors are essentially collective and we would be better off collaborating massively, we tend to jealously guide our own intellectual achievements. Meritocracy in academia and other fields are based on the assumption of individual achievements, up to such honors as Fields medals and Nobel Prizes.
Third, because we humans are concerned with practical success, we tend to choose projects with reasonable expectations of success. We tend to shy away from important but difficult problems.
All these limitations have pulled humans down to the sphere of mediocrity, while a vast unexplored areas of intellectual investigations lies in the outer space. Artificial intelligence systems are not limited by the biological constraints listed above. Most importantly, by the very nature of large language models, or language itself, ownerships, attributions, meritocracy, etc., which are so dear for humans can be totally done away with in AI research.
The resulting growth of intellectual sphere might be brutal for humans, but if we are really concerned with the value of new discoveries and knowledge, perhaps it is time to dissolve the cognitive foundations of the gravitational pull back to the sphere of mediocrity all together. We would still have ikigai then, in the brave new world of intellectual outer space beyond the intelligence escape velocity.
