trailBy 2030, AI systems will be able to automate many real-world software tasks that take humans a month.
Transformative economic and societal impacts of AI will unfold slowly, over decades rather than years.
The argument from extrapolating the time-horizon trend· for
Frontier AI 50% time horizons on METR's task suite have grown approximately exponentially with release date since 2024.
atomic
AI agents’ 50%-reliability software-task horizon will continue doubling approximately every seven months.
≈ 203 days
Doubling time of the 50%-task-completion time horizon of frontier AI models on METR's software task suite, 2019–2025, in days
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Increasing training compute enables AI systems to automate increasingly complex tasks.
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≈ 103 days
Doubling time, in days, of the 50%-task-completion horizon of frontier AI models released from 2024 onward on METR's software task suite
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+1
Time-horizon trends measured on benchmark software tasks generalize to real-world software work.
AI benchmarks overestimate models' capabilities on real-world tasks.
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AI agents' success on real-world software tasks judged by maintainer review improves at a similar rate to their benchmark success.
AI time horizons grow roughly exponentially across many task domains beyond software engineering, with similar doubling times.
The argument from messy real-world tasks· against
AI agents’ improvement trends plateau or slow specifically on higher-messiness tasks.
shared · shown elsewhere
claim · empirical · derivedA factual claim that rests on inference from other evidence rather than direct observation.constitution →claim page ↗︎
By 2030, AI systems will be able to automate many real-world software tasks that take humans a month.
⇄InconclusiveThe evidence and argument have been examined and do not come down on either side.constitution →credence 0.45Credence, 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.