trailLLM pretraining scaling has hit a recent rough patch.
The argument from disappointing 2024–2025 scale-ups· for
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.
The stock of high-quality human-generated text for LLM pretraining is close to being exhausted.
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The argument from Gemini 3's pretraining gains· against
Gemini 3 achieved large capability gains from continued pretraining scaling in late 2025.
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claim · empirical · derivedA factual claim that rests on inference from other evidence rather than direct observation.constitution →claim page ↗︎
LLM pretraining scaling has hit a recent rough patch.
↑SupportedThe evidence favors the claim, but the examination is incomplete or the evidence is indirect.constitution →credence 0.70Credence, 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 →
Nothing in the graph builds on this claim yet.
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.