If Anthropic doubles AI R&D pace via automation, superintelligence in ~12 months
connoraxiotes · x · 2026-11-05
Tom Davidson offers a rough estimate building on Anthropic's claim that automating AI R&D could soon double its pace of progress. Assuming recent training compute grows 3x/year and algorithmic efficiency 10x/year (30x effective compute annually), doubling total progress to 900x/year requires algorithmic efficiency to hit 300x/year — a doubling every 1.5 months. Modeling intelligence explosion dynamics from there, he concludes superintelligence would arrive roughly 12 months after the pace doubling. He flags it as back-of-the-envelope.
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