METR report reignites 2027 intelligence explosion debate; Ord pushes back
tobyordoxford · x · 2026-11-11
Daniel Kokotajlo, after reading METR's new report, concludes "the intelligence explosion will be happening in 2027 after all": METR estimates Anthropic's AI progress is now running at roughly 2x its historical rate (uncertainty range 1.3x-3x), with perhaps 80% of the current acceleration driven by AI itself. If right, that puts AI-driven acceleration 5 months ahead of the AI 2027 scenario. He writes he is "scared, sad, and angry."
Toby Ord offers a methodological critique: the analysis doesn't propagate uncertainty — it opens by acknowledging METR's 1.3x-3x range but then assumes a certain 2x throughout; tracking uncertainty through the calculation would yield a smaller update toward an intelligence explosion.
Related event: AI 2027 Team Updates Forecast: Intelligence Explosion Could Come in 2027(34 posts)→
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