Ever feel like you blink and tech just leaps forward? I was just reading this mind-blowing research from METR, and get this: there’s basically a Moore’s Law for AI, but it’s like Moore’s Law on energy drinks! They’re saying the length of tasks AI can handle is doubling roughly every 7 months. That’s insane!
The Gist
It’s not just about AI getting “smarter” at quick quizzes. This is about endurance: how long can an AI work on a complex job before it messes up? Think of it like an athlete: we’re not just measuring how high they jump, but how long they can run a marathon.
Right now, the top AIs can tackle tasks that would take a skilled human about an hour.
Future Projections (Hold Onto Your Hats!)
If this trend keeps up, we’re looking at some wild stuff:
- 2026: AI handles a full 8-hour workday’s worth of tasks.
- 2027: AI manages projects that take 2–3 days.
- 2028: AI could complete a whole 40-hour workweek.
- 2029: Get ready for AI to manage month-long projects!
- 2031: Potentially an entire 50-week work year.
And here’s the kicker: for some super specific tasks, like software engineering, this “doubling time” is even faster: under 3 months! If we only look at the newest models from 2024–2025, those dates above could jump forward by about 2.5 years. Whoa.
A Pinch of Salt?
Now, it’s not all sunshine and robot overlords just yet. Some smart folks point out this can be super domain-specific (for instance, AI chess skills improve way slower). Others wonder if a 50% success rate is really “good enough” for real-world stuff, or if we’ll hit a wall where progress gets way harder.
So, What’s the Big Deal for Us?
This is a big heads-up for anyone in a white-collar job. Your job isn’t vanishing tomorrow, but the kind of long, complex tasks that make up our workdays? AI is getting seriously good at them, and fast. It’s a clear sign we need to keep learning and adapting, folks! Time to get familiar with these tools.