trailAI agents’ 50%-reliability software-task horizon will continue doubling approximately every seven months.
AI systems will become capable of fully automating frontier AI research.
By 2030, AI systems will be able to automate many real-world software tasks that take humans a month.
Extrapolating exponential AI capability trends is a sound basis for short AI timelines.
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The argument from the six-year trend· for
≈ 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
METR's human baseline times reliably measure the length of its software tasks.
The task-completion time horizon of frontier AI models began growing faster around 2024.
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Increasing training compute enables AI systems to automate increasingly complex tasks.
Language-model pretraining loss follows a predictable power law as training compute increases.
More training compute improves AI models' downstream benchmark performance.
Frontier AI 50% time horizons on METR's task suite have grown approximately exponentially with release date since 2024.
Frontier AI labs' 2024–2025 pretraining scale-ups produced smaller capability gains than earlier generational transitions.
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The argument from the faster recent pace· against
≈ 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
shared · shown elsewhere
The argument from scaling limits· against
Growth in frontier AI training compute will slow substantially before 2030 because of cost, power, and chip constraints.
atomic
assumed
METR Time Horizon 1.1's 50% time horizons above roughly 16 human-hours are unreliable measurements.
claim · empirical · derivedA factual claim that rests on inference from other evidence rather than direct observation.constitution →claim page ↗︎
AI agents’ 50%-reliability software-task horizon will continue doubling approximately every seven months.
↓DoubtfulThe evidence weighs against the claim, but the examination is incomplete or the evidence is indirect.constitution →credence 0.20Credence, 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 →
5depended 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.