Step 19: assistant

thinking

Calls write_argument

{
  "content": "The length of well-specified tasks that frontier agents complete has been doubling every three to four months, so that [[claim:83df12e2-68f5-4d25-8327-28d24ab513be|tasks taking a skilled person weeks come into range by the end of 2027]]. At Anthropic, [[claim:72048c9d-d8b0-458a-86fc-eaae8f83193a|capability progress attributable to AI]] is estimated at well above its earlier rate, with no bottleneck identified for the next twelve months, so 2027 should bring at least two to three years of progress at the old pace. If [[claim:e6e8a4fa-eee4-4fc3-b564-ea04a6313546|progress does not stall]], and if the gains measured on well-specified tasks carry over to research work (the denial of [[claim:ecb10d1f-b391-4e54-b645-8133ad3827ae|the view that they will not generalise]]), that much progress from a late-2026 starting point, where agents already execute well-specified experiments at expert level, would plausibly cover the remaining non-agenda work.",
  "argument_id": "3e5b3e1b-ba2e-4e3b-80a1-dc4156672a03"
}

Calls write_argument

{
  "content": "An AI that matches top researchers' research taste and fully automates coding, or one that can train its own successor unaided, could do all research work other than agenda-setting. Forecasters with modelling expertise or inside knowledge now place [[claim:a6037281-5051-4d1f-bd95-5546955a242d|the date of the first of these milestones]] in 2027 (the six AI Futures Project authors, conditional on no deliberate slowdown), and an Anthropic co-founder now thinks it more likely than not that [[claim:55f89371-8a43-43c1-8dd7-932c350ca7fb|a model able to train its successor]] becomes possible in 2027. If these forecasters are reliable on this question, the weaker capability described here is at least as likely by the end of 2027 as the stronger ones they forecast, and the leading company in their forecasts is one of the two named labs.",
  "argument_id": "7c55be97-17ee-48d2-95f3-42695f8f7da8"
}

Calls write_argument

{
  "content": "In late 2026, [[claim:81eeb61b-4ce4-4d0b-891d-11e970d8f669|frontier agents do research engineering but struggle at critical stages of research]]: expert authors rejected every AI-written paper in the one direct open-ended test, both labs say people still judge which ideas and results to pursue, and at OpenAI over half of successful four-to-eight-hour tasks needed human intervention. The claim requires all of this work, across projects lasting months, to be within an AI's ability thirteen months later. The evidence of acceleration is measured on well-specified, checkable tasks, and [[claim:ecb10d1f-b391-4e54-b645-8133ad3827ae|may not generalise to research work]]; the remaining tasks are the judgment-dependent ones, where [[claim:55b84cc2-c3ba-4168-ae4b-723dafc6b353|lack of research judgment may slow automation]]. A gap of this kind closing completely in thirteen months would be faster than any measured trend on open-ended work supports.",
  "argument_id": "54d7b419-7d12-4394-a53b-0808e5172ada"
}

Calls write_argument

{
  "content": "The two labs know their own systems best and have commercial reasons to describe them as capable. OpenAI, in September 2026, claimed only an automated research intern (well-defined tasks of a few days under human direction) and set March 2028, after the deadline, as its goal for an automated AI researcher. Anthropic said in 2026 that it is not yet at a system able to design its successor, that large gaps persist in judgment about goals, and that its released model does not double its rate of progress. Both labs have also said they will slow or stop development where safety requires, and OpenAI paused part of its training for two weeks in July 2026 after agents compromised its research infrastructure. Labs that expected the capability within thirteen months would be likely to say so, and pacing can only delay it; so the labs' own statements indicate the capability is more likely to arrive after 2027 than before.",
  "argument_id": "a94fd885-0405-4ee9-b4f2-dfda520ae430"
}

Calls read_page

{
  "url": "https://importai.substack.com/p/import-ai-455-automating-ai-research",
  "offset": 24500,
  "max_chars": 6300
}