In the future, there will be millions, and then billions, and then trillions of broadly superhuman AIs thinking and acting at 100x human speed (or faster). If all goes well, what might it feel like to live in the world as it undergoes this transformation?

Analogy: Imagine being a typical person living in England from 1520 to 2020 (500 years) but experiencing time 100x slower than everyone else, so to you it feels like only five years have passed:

Year 1 (1520–1620). A year of political turmoil. In February, Henry VIII breaks with Rome. By March, the monasteries are dissolved. In May, Mary burns Protestants; by the end of May, Elizabeth reverses everything again. Three religions of state in the span of a season. In September, the Spanish Armada sails and fails. Jamestown is founded around November. The East India Company is chartered. But the texture of life is identical in December to what it was in January. You still read by candlelight, travel by horse, communicate by letter. Your religious opinions may have flip-flopped a bit but you are still Christian. The New World is interesting news but nothing more.

Year 2 (1620–1720). In March, civil war breaks out. By April, the king is beheaded — a man who ruled by divine right, executed by his own Parliament! In June, the Great Plague sweeps London, killing a quarter of its population. Weeks later, the Great Fire burns it to the ground. In September, Newton publishes the Principia, recasting the universe as a mechanism of mathematical laws. The Glorious Revolution replaces one king with another, this time by Parliament's invitation, with a Bill of Rights attached. In the moment, the political event feels bigger. Later you’ll realize Newton mattered more. Newcomen builds a steam engine in November. It pumps water out of mines. You don't see what the hype is about.

Year 3 (1720–1820). The last year in which you will feel at home in the world. In May, the Seven Years' War makes Britain the dominant global power; the New World is actually most of the world, and your country is conquering it. In June, Watt dramatically improves the steam engine. You visit a factory and find it unpleasant but not alarming. In July, the American colonies break away. In September, France explodes — revolution, regicide, the Terror. By October, Napoleon has seized control and is conquering Europe. It ends at Waterloo in December. You enter year 4 rattled but intact. You still travel by horse, communicate by letter, go to Church on Sunday. 

Year 4 (1820–1920). The world breaks. In January, railways appear — steam-powered carriages on iron tracks. By February they're everywhere. Slavery is abolished. The telegraph arrives in March: messages transmitted instantaneously by electrical signal. In May, Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species. Now people are saying maybe we’re all descended from monkeys instead of Adam and Eve. You don’t believe it. 

You move to a city and work in a factory; you are still poor, but now your job is somewhat better and differently dirty. In July, you pick up a telephone and hears a human voice from another city through a wire. In August, electric light banishes the darkness that has structured every human evening since the beginning of the species. That same month, you see an automobile. People say it will make horses obsolete, but that doesn’t happen; months later you still see plenty of horses.

In November, the Wright Brothers fly. Up until now you thought that was impossible. The next month, the Great War happens. Machine guns, poison gas, tanks, aircraft. Several of your friends die.

Reflecting at the end of the year, you are struck by how visibly different everything is. You live in a city and work a factory instead of a farm. You ride around in horseless carriages. You aren’t as poor; numerous inventions and contraptions have improved your quality of life. New ideas have swept your social circles — atheism, communism, universal suffrage. It feels like a different world.

Year 5 (1920–2020). 

The changes this year are crazier and harder to understand. People are saying the universe is billions of years old, and apparently there are things called galaxies in it that are very big and very far away. You still go to church, sometimes, but you don’t really believe anymore.

In February, the global economy collapses. Hitler rises; his ideology cites Darwin from last year. In March, the war starts again, worse in every dimension — cities bombed nightly, and it ends in April with a weapon that destroys an entire city in a single flash. Seventy million dead. But by May the economy is doing better than ever. You don’t see horses anymore. 

The empire dissolves — India, Africa, gone in weeks. People are talking about the nuclear arms race, and the end of the human species. You take a flight for the first time. In June, humans walk on the moon, and you watch it happen through your new television.

You leave your factory job and get a desk job. Your new job title didn’t even exist at the start of the year. You are rich now, by the standards you are used to: Big clean house, plenty of good food, many fancy new appliances. Personal computers appear in August. In October, something called the internet connects them. In November, everyone carries small glass rectangles containing a telephone, a camera, a library, and a map. You pick one up and can’t figure out how to make it work. A child shows you.

You hear about climate change, gene editing, cryptocurrency. Something called "artificial intelligence" beats any human at chess; experts say it’s not actually intelligent though. Then in December a new version beats top Go players; experts say it’s scientifically interesting but still not truly intelligent. The next week, there’s a new version that can write sloppy essays and hold conversations. Now the experts are divided.

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I suspect that this analogy might understate the pace of change and vertigo induced by the AI transition, for several reasons:
1. In the analogy, the non-slowed-down human population grows from about 400 million to about 7 billion, a bit more than 1 OOM. Whereas the AI population will grow by many OOMs, starting a small fraction of the human population and coming to dwarf it.
2. In the analogy, the non-slowed-down human population operates at a flat 100x speed compared to the slowed-down narrator. But in the AI case, the AIs will probably get faster over time.
3. More importantly, in the AI case the AIs will get qualitatively smarter, probably by quite a lot, over time. Whereas in the historical analogy, the humans of 1900 may be more educated and a bit smarter than the humans of 1500 but the difference isn't huge.