Comment by md_rumpf

I think it goes hand in hand.

Knowledge work is made up (literally). It's all tasks that humans have created for themselves. We invented the maths, the programming languages, the spreadsheet software, the government form – everything.

The real world is very much not made up (especially if you're nonreligious). Most of the tasks are sampled from a distribution we did not invent and that means they might be much, much harder.

I think supersonic airliners might even be thinking too small. If we scaled speed like we did transistors, then if an Intel 4004 is like walking, an M2 Max would be like going 0.28c (c = speed of light)!