>But they have evidence, measurements and a quantitative model etc.

There's no evidence for something that has yet to happen yet. We have a model for increasing temperature but even this is not entirely accurate. Did we predict the heavy rain in CA as a result of warming? The evidence is somewhat solid but there is an aspect to it that is speculative as well. What we do know is that huge changes will occur in climate.

Additionally, Can we make a projection about the climate with the alternative energy initiatives in place? Not an accurate one. We don't have a mathematical model that can accurately predict what will happen. We may have models but those models will likely be off.

The effects of climate change on civilization are the main course here. These claims are basically all pure speculation. We have no idea what's going to happen with rising temperature and how it will change society as we know it. Should we just clamp down on all speculation and doom-saying when it could be a realistic scenario?

For AI there's tons of evidence of about the increase in capabilities. If you want to quantify it into a model though you would have to create some sort of numerical scale. have 1, with logic gates, 2 with math calculations, 3 with chess AI, and so on and so forth. Just at each number in the scale is some milestone of intelligence that must be surpassed by machines.

If you graph this scale on the Y axis with time as the X axis you get an increasing graph, where milestone after milestone is surpassed over time. You may get some AI "winters" but overall the trend is up and from this projection the evidence while still highly speculative is Very similar to the climate model in terms of an increasing projection. If AI continues to increase indefinitely as the projections show you eventually hit the AGI point on that scale.

I mean this is what a model is. Typically common sense is enough here but since you want a model you just do this and boom your common sense is now a numerical model and you have your "evidence" which is plastered with enough technical numbers and graphs to satisfy your desire to feed your rectum with "numbers" and "science" as if that's all there is to logic, reasoning and evidence.

There's your evidence of AGI, just as strong as climate change in terms of projection. We know climate will increase and we know the capabilities of AI will increase over time. And the speculation of the apocalyptic effects to society as a result of powerful AI? Same as the speculation of climate change apocalypse. All made up, but all within the realm of probability and realism.

The difference between climate change and AGI is that AGI had a observable inflection point with chatGPT. The sudden shift was so drastic and jarring that we get a lot of people like you who just want to call everything BS even if it's a realistic possibility. With climate change it's like, yeah apocalyptic temperature changes are just around the corner you'd be stupid not to agree but your still driving your car, and using energy that causes global warming.

It's like we're honest to ourselves with climate, but we don't act honestly because the doom that is encroaching on our society is happening really slowly. Too slowly to make us act. Just handle it later.

With AGI the change was so sudden and drastic we can't even be honest with ourselves. What if I spent years honing my software engineering skills... does all that skill go to waste? I have to lie to myself in order to maintain all those years of time I spent honing my craft. I have to suppress the speculation even if it's a realistic projection.