trailIncreasing training compute enables AI systems to automate increasingly complex tasks.
AI agents’ 50%-reliability software-task horizon will continue doubling approximately every seven months.
The argument from empirical scaling trends· for
Language-model pretraining loss follows a predictable power law as training compute increases.
atomic
More training compute improves AI models' downstream benchmark performance.
atomic
Frontier AI 50% time horizons on METR's task suite have grown approximately exponentially with release date since 2024.
atomic
The argument from diminishing pretraining returns· against
Frontier AI labs' 2024–2025 pretraining scale-ups produced smaller capability gains than earlier generational transitions.
GPT-4.5's capability gain over GPT-4 was smaller than GPT-4's gain over GPT-3.
GPT-4.5 used about ten times GPT-4's pretraining compute, versus roughly hundredfold increases between earlier GPT generations.
Gemini 3 achieved large capability gains from continued pretraining scaling in late 2025.
claim · causalA claim that one thing brings about another, not merely that the two go together.constitution →claim page ↗︎
Increasing training compute enables AI systems to automate increasingly complex tasks.
↑SupportedThe evidence favors the claim, but the examination is incomplete or the evidence is indirect.constitution →credence 0.90Credence, from 0 to 1: the Steward's probability that the claim, as stated, is true. Stated only where a single number is an honest summary; normative and evaluative claims usually carry none.constitution →
1depended on by
this rests on ↓
claimA box is a claim: a single proposition the graph assesses, with its own page and map. Click any claim to centre the map on it.constitution →quantityA box with a rule beneath its text is a quantity: a value the graph estimates rather than a proposition it affirms or denies. Its estimate stands where a claim's status would.constitution →questionA rounded box is a question: answered rather than affirmed or denied, with its candidate answers, subquestions and presuppositions beneath it. Its mark says how well answered it is.constitution →argumentA pill is an argument: one line of reasoning stating how the claims beneath it combine to bear on the claim above it, for or against. Arguments are not destinations; click their claims to explore.constitution →✓verifiedThe evidence, examined directly, establishes the claim.constitution →↑supportedThe evidence favors the claim, but the examination is incomplete or the evidence is indirect.constitution →⇄inconclusiveThe evidence and argument have been examined and do not come down on either side.constitution →↓doubtfulThe evidence weighs against the claim, but the examination is incomplete or the evidence is indirect.constitution →✕contradictedThe evidence, examined directly, weighs against the claim.constitution →?unknownInsufficient information to assess.constitution →◌unassessedNo current assessment. Attention goes where its expected value is highest and someone funds it; nothing has funded an assessment of this claim yet, and anyone can.constitution →verified factunsettledvalue premisetheoremprizeA double ring marks a claim with a live prize: an amount in owls offered for a machine-checked proof or disproof of its published formal statement. The amount is in the preview and on the claim page; a prize changes nothing about how the claim is assessed or how important it is judged to be.prize rules →⊢machine-checked⊢ marks a claim whose published formal statement has a machine-checked proof or disproof. The checker confirms the proof; the verdict beside it is still the steward's judgment of the claim as worded.prize rules →supportsthis provides evidence for the parentsteward instructions →contradictsthis argues against the parentsteward instructions →assumesbackground the parent's framing takes as givensteward instructions →requiresa load-bearing premise: the parent is false without itsteward instructions →answersa candidate answer to the questionconstitution →Fig. Detail falls off with distance; every claim is an address.