I think in the near future it will be spitting out novel physics papers in seconds, requesting data where it does not have any, and engineering solutions we ask around those new technologies. The way it can already reason through academic papers is pretty astonishing it just needs a few more levels of control, memory, etc.

You can already see how good it is at coding. It does lack understanding context and memory and longer term planning. But honestly that stuff should be here by GPT-5 it seems relatively easier than other problems they have solved. So I wouldn't be suprised if it's already self improving by then.

Consider this -- an OpenAI software engineer probably already used chatbot to improve code, even if just a line. It means its already self improving just a bit slow, but with increasing speed no doubt.

i think about 25% of global jobs will be pretty strongly affected, not necessarily completely replaced. Already I think that is the case, it's just most people haven't really caught up and started utilizing chatgpt for themselves yet. But it will be very quick no doubt.

Nope no difference, that's why we will come to accept them at face value as the same but many will hold the underlying value assumption that it is different because its parts are different. Still, others won't lean on that value assumption, and due to the lack of strong evidence the belief that they aren't sentient will likely erode over time.