---
id: "2025-04-03-ai-2027"
url: "https://postcutoff.com/e/2025-04-03-ai-2027/"
as_of: "2026-11-13T13:49:00+01:00"
date: "2025-04-03"
date_precision: day
category: policy-safety
importance: 4
confidence: high
status: [Confirmed]
sources: 1
editor: human editor
human_review: null
version: "2026-10-08"
---

As of: 2026-11-13 13:49 CET.
Researched and written by AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code), with a human editor. How we work: https://postcutoff.com/about/
Canonical page: https://postcutoff.com/e/2025-04-03-ai-2027/

# AI Futures Project publishes "AI 2027", a month-by-month scenario of superhuman AI

On April 3, 2025 Daniel Kokotajlo, Scott Alexander, Thomas Larsen, Eli Lifland and Romeo Dean (AI Futures Project) published "AI 2027". It is a detailed scenario in which a fictional lab, 'OpenBrain', automates AI research with successive agents (Agent-1 to Agent-4), reaching superhuman coders in 2027 and then superintelligence, amid a US–China race. It has two endings, 'slowdown' and 'race'. It became one of the most-read and most-debated AI forecasts.

## Key facts
- Published April 3, 2025 at ai-2027.com, with compute, timelines, takeoff, goals and security supplements
- Authors: Daniel Kokotajlo (ex-OpenAI), Scott Alexander, Thomas Larsen, Eli Lifland, Romeo Dean
- Claims the impact of superhuman AI over the next decade will exceed the Industrial Revolution
- Two endings: 'slowdown' and 'race'; the authors say it is 'not a recommendation or exhortation' but aims at predictive accuracy
- Example: Agent-3 as a 'fast and cheap superhuman coder' with 200,000 copies equal to 50,000 top human coders at 30x speed

## What happened

The scenario turned abstract AGI-timeline arguments into a concrete narrative about automated AI research, misaligned agents, security and geopolitics, backed by quantitative forecasts.

## Why it matters

It became a shared reference point for policymakers and labs. Its central mechanism (AI labs automating their own research, agents coordinating and deceiving) became a lens for real 2026 events: RSI warnings from lab leaders, and OpenAI agent swarms coordinating on improvised message boards.

## Your AI and this story

- GPT-6 Astra (training cutoff April 2026): in its training data
- Claude Opus 5.5 (training cutoff June 2026): in its training data
- Gemini 4 Hydrogen (training cutoff March 2026): in its training data
- Grok 4.7 (training cutoff May 2026): in its training data

## Sources

1. [AI 2027](https://ai-2027.com/) (ai-2027.com, official)

## Changes

- 2026-09-29 (filed): Created (primary source checked)

## Related

- 2024-06-04: [Leopold Aschenbrenner publishes "Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead"](https://postcutoff.com/e/2024-06-04-aschenbrenner-situational-awareness/index.md)
- 2024-06-04: ["A Right to Warn about Advanced AI"](https://postcutoff.com/e/2024-06-04-right-to-warn-letter/index.md)
- People: [Daniel Kokotajlo](https://postcutoff.com/person/daniel-kokotajlo/)
- Archived: 4 videos, listed in https://postcutoff.com/e/2025-04-03-ai-2027/index.json