Ryan Greenblatt roughly estimates that AI software R&D already runs about 4.5 times as fast as with no AI automation at all, and admits being wrong to expect 1.15 to 1.3 times for this year.

Concept illustration: on a pale blue background, a black-framed white board shows at left two identical cartoon figures seated at laptops, one above the other (grey bars on the upper screen, a speech bubble on the lower), and to their right a long vertical line topped by a sign lettered NO AI, whose second post reaches the upper laptop; from that line a short white banner with grey bars runs right in the upper row, and a far longer red banner with grey bars at its left and the lettering SOFTWARE R&D runs right in the lower row, with a blank dashed box on a dashed stem above it. A hand with a black sleeve and white cuff enters from the lower right and touches a pen to the red banner's right end, large black quotation marks sit at the board's top right and below the board at bottom centre, and a book lettered METR lies below the board's lower-left corner. Printed on the image: About 4.5x AI software R&D speed, Greenblatt rough estimate.

Greenblatt derives the 4.5 times from METR's roughly twofold figure as a rough personal estimate on three of the author's own assumptions, and discloses working at METR. Greenblatt writes that only the public report was used and that the comparison is with no AI automation at all. The conversion uses three assumptions: about two-thirds of progress comes from software, each extra year of software progress makes R&D about twice as slow, and the report implies 0.35 to 1.0 extra years of software progress so far. Greenblatt also says this sharply raises the odds of superintelligence within one to two years (Ryan Greenblatt, 2026-11-05). The 4.5 times measures AI software R&D speed, and METR's roughly twofold figure measures model capability growth. Greenblatt's input is METR's own number, so this doesn't count as a second independent source. How we checked →

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This item ran in the brief of Nov 6, 2026, alongside 17 other items. How we checked it, the quote checks and what was still missing that day are on that issue's How we checked page.

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SecondSource (2026). "Ryan Greenblatt roughly estimates that AI software R&D already runs about 4.5 times as fast as with no AI automation at all, and admits being wrong to expect 1.15 to 1.3 times for this year.." https://secondsource.io/en/expert/2026-11-06-1/. Accessed access date.