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MTS · 3 min · Nov 6, 2026

METR sees faster progress, but key evidence remains hidden

Jeffrey Ladish · Executive Director, Palisade Research

Jeffrey Ladish says METR’s estimate of a 2x acceleration deserves attention, despite his skepticism about company timelines.

The episode’s best minutes

Full analysis
  1. 0:57METR sees faster progress, but key evidence remains hidden3 min
  2. 12:28Pacing may need to include limits on model use4 min
  3. 21:05AI gains generalize unevenly, especially in social skills4 min
  4. 2 more moments in the full episode
“I think that, like, Anthropic should release this data, unredact this data, so that, like, the whole world can assess this for themselves.”
Jeffrey Ladishat 3:34 · MTS
3:34

Takeaways

  1. Ladish had expected fully automated AI R&D around 2028.
  2. METR’s assessment suggests progress is moving about twice as fast.
  3. He says Anthropic should unredact evidence with major strategic implications.

About this segment

Jeffrey Ladish says METR’s estimate of a 2x acceleration deserves attention, despite his skepticism about company timelines. He argues Anthropic should release the evidence so others can assess it.

Jeffrey Ladish

Jeffrey Ladish is an executive director of Palisade Research.

Studies AI offensive capabilities at Palisade; helped build Anthropic’s information-security program.

  • Theo Jaffee, Host · Co-founder & host, MTS

    One of the first members of a16z's new media team; earlier hosted the Emergent Ventures-backed Theo Jaffee Podcast.

  • Sophia Dew, Host · Host, MTS

From “AI Agents Could Seize Digital Infrastructure in 1 Year”, Nov 6, 2026. Watch the full episode

Answers “What will AI look like in the next few years?” See all 169 answers

Answers “Is AI progress slowing down?” See all 30 answers

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

  1. 1:02

    to uh ai driven acceleration so what did you make of this report like you know there are a lot of people who were like uh this uh should this should uh cause a substantial update towards like much shorter timelines. Yeah, I mean, I think it's really notable that this is a faster speed up than Daniel Cocotelo's AI 2027 scenario predicts. So like, I don't know, you remember like a year ago, a lot of people were sort of like down on Daniel Cocotelo because he updated a little bit like towards longer timelines than as predicted in AI 2027. And now he's saying, no, I think it actually might be shorter timelines than we predicted. And you know, I don't know, the AI futures project guys are the people who I know, who have like the most rigorous models. And they're looking at all the parameters and trying to like figure out what are the inputs? How will this

  2. 1:54

    impact the overall speed? And I'm just like, man, that's insanely fast progress for something that was already going really fast. So I mean, my initial reaction is, I don't know, I think I've been kind of skeptical overall, about AI company claims about how close they are to recursive self improvement. Like, not maybe that skeptical, I think, you know, I'm like, well, I maybe expect it in like 2028, like full, fully automated AI R&D. Whereas I think I talked to a lot of people at Anthropic and they say, no, I think in like, you know, early to mid 2027, we'll probably be able to do this. Like, you know, most of the AI development will be happening autonomously by AI agents. And I mean, that's, I think that's, it's extremely aggressive in terms of like, that would transform the world so fast. But I've been a bit skeptical because I don't know, and not because

  3. 2:41

    I think people are lying. I don't think they're lying. I think they're like, it's just easy to sort of be within a company and like see a lot of progress and sort of drink your own kool-aid and be like yeah i think we can do it you know whatever um but i'm like man i think meter is i just take meters uh reports really seriously i think they have a really good track record at being extremely rigorous and like not bullshitting and when they say like hey here's the situation it looks like a 2x speed up to us like than previous trends based on like ai uplift I'm like, that's pretty good evidence.

  4. 3:13

    I will say, I think one thing important to note, though, is that Meter said that they had to redact most of the best evidence for this in the report. So they're basically saying, this is our assessment, but we don't think, if you don't trust us, you shouldn't trust this assessment. We weren't able to share the data with you. Anthropic is not sharing the data with you. And I'm like, this seems not good.

  5. 3:34

    I'm like, look, I trust Meter, but I don't think that the world should have to trust Meter on this one. I think that, like, Anthropic should release this data, unredact this data, so that, like, the whole world can assess this for themselves. Because I'm like, man, this has huge strategic implications for national security, for U.S.-China stuff, for, like, you know, for all of this stuff. And, yeah, it seems like we should know, you know, we should release the data.