“(near) Full automation of AI R&D by Dec 31, 2026: 10%. My operationalization is: for whichever AI company is in the lead as of Dec 31, 2026, if you fired all its members of technical staff, its rate of technical progress on relevant benchmarks would be slowed down by less than 25%.”

Rescoring in August 2026, Cotra said capability milestones were arriving 30–50% faster than she forecast but declined to mechanically raise this probability.