Some recent news articles discuss updates to our AI timelines since AI 2027, most notably our new timelines and takeoff model, the AI Futures Model (see blog post announcement).[1] While we’re glad to see broader discussion of the AI timelines, these articles make substantial errors in their reporting. Please don’t assume that their contents accurately represent things we’ve written or believe! This post aims to clarify our past and current views.[2]

The articles in question include:

The Guardian: Leading AI expert delays timeline for its possible destruction of humanity
The Independent: AI ‘could be last technology humanity ever builds’, expert warns in ‘doom timeline’
Inc: AI Expert Predicted AI Would End Humanity in 2027—Now He's Changing His Timeline
WaPo: The world has a few more years
Daily Mirror: AI expert reveals exactly how long is left until terrifying end of humanity

Our views at a high level

Important things that we believed in Apr 2025 when we published AI 2027, and still believe now:

AGI and superintelligence (ASI) will eventually be built and might be built soon, and thus we should be prepared for them to be built soon.
We are highly uncertain about when AGI and [...]

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Outline:

(01:25) Our views at a high level

(03:00) Correcting common misunderstandings

(04:34) Detailed overview of past timelines forecasts

(04:39) Forecasts since Apr 2025

(06:30) 2018-2026 AGI median forecasts

(11:21) Eli

The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
January 27th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qPco9BX5kmKCDzzW9/clarifying-how-our-ai-timelines-forecasts-have-changed-since

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

Table showing shifted AI milestone forecasts since 2027 for TED-AI, Superhuman Coder, Superintelligence, and Automated Coder.

Forecast graph showing TED-AI growth rate declining from 2028 peak to near zero by 2048.

Line graph showing two authors' predicted AGI year medians over time from 2020 to 2026.

Line graph showing two authors' median AGI predictions from 2020 to 2026.

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“Clarifying how our AI timelines forecasts have changed since AI 2027” by elifland, Daniel Kokotajlo, bhalstead

LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Clarifying how our AI timelines forecasts have changed since AI 2027” by elifland, Daniel Kokotajlo, bhalstead