The future is hard to predict. If we're lucky, we'll have 10 to 20 years to prepare for it. We can take our time with the rest.
If we're unlucky, a cutting‑edge laboratory could unveil a new model tomorrow that would basically amount to superintelligence. It probably won't happen, but maybe it will. For this reason, a responsible government will have no choice but to prepare for the closest scenarios.
If we're lucky, we'll have more time to improve our solutions. However, we need to get started. We must tell ourselves that we don't have time. We really need to act now and lay the foundations. We need to either take a break or implement other solutions to ensure that we don't end up in a world where we lose control.
Then, in terms of the number of years involved, the CEOs of Anthropic, OpenAI and Google DeepMind are talking about two to five years. Other experts say one to three years. We don't know. However, if these are smart people who are keeping a close eye on developments and telling us that we must be ready—and I hope that they're wrong and I strongly hope that we'll have 20 years to figure this out—as a precautionary measure, we need to prepare ourselves for short‑term scenarios. After that, we'll take our time.