Elon Predicted GPT-5/6 Would Match Smartest Humans 27 Months Before ChatGPT
aakashgupta · x · 2026-09-08
A look back at Elon Musk's prediction, made 27 months before ChatGPT launched, that GPT-5 or 6 could be indistinguishable from the smartest humans.
- Most people's AI clock starts Nov 30, 2022; the prediction was already two years old then
- GPT-3 had been in the API since June 2020, used only by developers and a few startups
- Musk extrapolated from a 1,500x parameter jump from GPT to GPT-3 in two years
- ChatGPT added 100M users in two months, but the underlying curve was already four years old
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