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[Linkpost] “METR: Measuring AI Ability to Complete Long Tasks” by Zach Stein-Perlman
Mar 19, 2025
Discover a groundbreaking approach to measuring AI performance by focusing on task lengths. The discussion reveals a striking trend: AI's ability to tackle longer tasks is doubling every seven months. Predictions suggest that within a decade, AI could independently manage complex software tasks that usually take humans days or weeks. This fascinating analysis sheds light on the rapid evolution of AI capabilities and its future implications.
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Quick takeaways
- A proposed metric indicates that AI's capability to manage lengthy tasks has been exponentially growing, doubling approximately every seven months.
- This rapid advancement predicts that within a decade, AI could autonomously handle many software tasks currently reliant on human labor.
Deep dives
Measuring AI Task Completion Capacity
The growing ability of AI agents to complete lengthy tasks is a key focus, with a proposed metric that assesses AI performance based on the duration of tasks they can handle. This metric has shown a consistent exponential growth trend over the last six years, indicating significant advancements in AI capabilities. The data suggests an average doubling time of around seven months, illustrating the rapid progress in AI's ability to manage more complex and time-consuming tasks. As a result, this growth points to an impending reality where AI may independently tackle a significant portion of software tasks that currently require extensive human effort.
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