Start free trial

TRUE, BUTLab Not Field

Doubled on benchmarks, unproven beyond

METR says that ruler covers well-specified tasks, and Anthropic redacted most of the rest.

“AI is dramatically accelerating AI research at Anthropic right now, roughly doubling the pace of capabilities progress.”

Ajeya Cotra on Planned Obsolescence, reading METR's assessment and Anthropic's S-1 statement that it may imminently meet its own threshold, 6 November 2026

16 receipts6 support1 refute9 context

Issue 677 November 20263 min
An inspector times a robot-assisted scientist on a practice staircase beside a closed curtain.
AI illustration

METR's independent review does estimate about 2x, and rules out a compute surge as the cause.

The twist

the public number is a benchmark index on well-specified tasks, the checks span 1.1x to 2.9x, and Anthropic redacted most of the evidence METR found most informative.

1.9xAcceleration in Anthropic's internal benchmark index
1.1x to 2.9xRange METR's own robustness checks produced for the same acceleration
80%METR's rough guess at the share of today's acceleration due to AI
12xStaff self-reported uplift from Slack polls

There’s more to this story.

Membership opens the full investigation, the strongest counterargument and what to do with what you’ve learned.

30 days free, then A$89 a year. Payment card required. Cancel before the trial ends to avoid the first charge.

Start free trial →
  1. At sign-up: 30 days free. Payment card required. One introductory trial per customer.
  2. Your trial ends 30 days after you start. Unless you cancel before then in Account → Manage subscription, we charge A$89 for the first year. It renews automatically at A$89/yr until cancelled.
  3. You can ask for a full refund within 14 days after any annual payment, renewals included, with no reason needed, by emailing hello@bskiller.com. This voluntary refund does not limit your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.

By starting your trial, you agree to the Terms.

Inferno Tech Pty Ltd t/a BS Killer, ABN 27 647 413 474

Already a member? Sign in

The trick has a name

We call it Lab Not Field: it works in the test conditions, not the deployed ones. You'll see it again. Learn to spot it →

Say this in tomorrow's meeting“METR estimates Anthropic's benchmark progress is running about twice its old pace, mostly thanks to AI. That's on well-specified tasks, the range is wide, and most evidence is redacted.”

Receipts

  1. Supports planned-obsolescence.org: AI is dramatically accelerating AI research right now
  2. Supports planned-obsolescence.org: Anthropic stated in their S1 that they “may imminently meet” the threshold of “dramatically accelerated progress due to AI”
  3. Supports planned-obsolescence.org: it looks like the “dramatic acceleration” threshold has already been crossed
  4. Context planned-obsolescence.org: I did not work on this project or see the unredacted report.
  5. Supports metr.org: Anthropic is likely improving the capabilities of their models on well-specified tasks at around twice the rate they did between March 2024 and October 2025
  6. Context metr.org: we would not be surprised if the true acceleration was closer to 1.3x or 3x the historical rate
  7. Context metr.org: could be explained by overfitting to the benchmark distribution or otherwise be an artifact of the AECI methodology
  8. Refutes metr.org: We have additional uncertainty in how this acceleration translates to broader and less well-specified tasks.
  9. Context metr.org: Anthropic redacted a majority of the evidence we found most informative for these conclusions
  10. Context metr.org: Robustness analyses find acceleration rates between 1.1x and 2.9x.
  11. Supports metr.org: We are confident that the acceleration was not due to an acceleration in the scaling of training compute.
  12. Context metr.org: We consider this to be only very loose evidence
  13. Context metr.org: R&D is accelerated primarily via AI assistance rather than fully autonomous contributions
  14. Context therundown.ai: handing out a roadmap for others to go faster.
  15. Supports therundown.ai: METR crediting AI for around 80% of the company’s faster progress
  16. Context anthropic.com: METR will publish the results of its risk assessments.

Open the Receipts Pack → What each source proves, every figure traced, and what would change our verdict.

Checked by AI at the BS Killer desk · ruled 7 Nov 2026 · How we check →

Get tomorrow's check in your inbox.

One AI claim a night, checked against independent sources, receipts attached. Free.

Free email updates. Unsubscribe any time.

This story is a stable, citable object. If you can falsify a verdict, tell us. Corrections are loud here.