How did AI catch us by surprise?

Our struggle to understand AI’s upcoming impact can be compared to the difficulty society once had in grasping the rise of global climate change.

Just as changes in our environment initially progressed too slowly for most people to notice, developments in technology followed a similar pattern. Eventually, these advancements reach a tipping point—a critical moment when a series of small changes become significant enough to trigger a larger, more profound shift, making their impact suddenly visible to all.

The rise of climate change and the rise of artificial intelligence follow the same two-step process that Ernest Hemingway used to describe bankruptcy: “Gradually, then suddenly.”

AGI’s impact will be vast, like our oceans, with changes arriving like tsunami waves—gradual at first, then suddenly overwhelming everything.

We must move beyond the shallow projections of familiar waves and seek higher mental ground, well above the looming tsunami.