What the hell happened with AGI timelines in 2025?

What the hell happened with AGI timelines in 2025?

In early 2025, after OpenAI put out the first-ever reasoning models — o1 and o3 — short timelines to transformative artificial general intelligence swept the AI world. But then, in the second half of 2025, sentiment swung all the way back in the other direction, with people's forecasts for when AI might really shake up the world blowing out even further than they had been before reasoning models came along.

What the hell happened? Was it just swings in vibes and mood? Confusion? A series of fundamentally unexpected and unpredictable research results?

Host Rob Wiblin has been trying to make sense of it for himself, and here's the best explanation he's come up with so far.

Links to learn more, video, and full transcript: https://80k.info/tl

Chapters:

  • Making sense of the timelines madness in 2025 (00:00:00)
  • The great timelines contraction (00:00:46)
  • Why timelines went back out again (00:02:10)
  • Other longstanding reasons AGI could take a good while (00:11:13)
  • So what's the upshot of all of these updates? (00:14:47)
  • 5 reasons the radical pessimists are still wrong (00:16:54)
  • Even long timelines are short now (00:23:54)

This episode was recorded on January 29, 2026.

Video and audio editing: Dominic Armstrong, Milo McGuire, Luke Monsour, and Simon Monsour
Music: CORBIT
Camera operator: Dominic Armstrong
Coordination, transcripts, and web: Katy Moore

Episoder(333)

#207 – Sarah Eustis-Guthrie on why she shut down her charity, and why more founders should follow her lead

#207 – Sarah Eustis-Guthrie on why she shut down her charity, and why more founders should follow her lead

"I think one of the reasons I took [shutting down my charity] so hard is because entrepreneurship is all about this bets-based mindset. So you say, “I’m going to take a bunch of bets. I’m going to tak...

14 Nov 20242h 58min

Parenting insights from Rob and 8 past guests

Parenting insights from Rob and 8 past guests

With kids very much on the team's mind we thought it would be fun to review some comments about parenting featured on the show over the years, then have hosts Luisa Rodriguez and Rob Wiblin react to t...

8 Nov 20241h 35min

#206 – Anil Seth on the predictive brain and how to study consciousness

#206 – Anil Seth on the predictive brain and how to study consciousness

"In that famous example of the dress, half of the people in the world saw [blue and black], half saw [white and gold]. It turns out there’s individual differences in how brains take into account ambie...

1 Nov 20242h 33min

How much does a vote matter? (Article)

How much does a vote matter? (Article)

If you care about social impact, is voting important? In this piece, Rob investigates the two key things that determine the impact of your vote:The chances of your vote changing an election’s outcome....

28 Okt 202432min

#205 – Sébastien Moro on the most insane things fish can do

#205 – Sébastien Moro on the most insane things fish can do

"You have a tank split in two parts: if the fish gets in the compartment with a red circle, it will receive food, and food will be delivered in the other tank as well. If the fish takes the blue trian...

23 Okt 20243h 11min

#204 – Nate Silver on making sense of SBF, and his biggest critiques of effective altruism

#204 – Nate Silver on making sense of SBF, and his biggest critiques of effective altruism

Rob Wiblin speaks with FiveThirtyEight election forecaster and author Nate Silver about his new book: On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything.Links to learn more, highlights, video, and full transc...

16 Okt 20241h 57min

#203 – Peter Godfrey-Smith on interfering with wild nature, accepting death, and the origin of complex civilisation

#203 – Peter Godfrey-Smith on interfering with wild nature, accepting death, and the origin of complex civilisation

"In the human case, it would be mistaken to give a kind of hour-by-hour accounting. You know, 'I had +4 level of experience for this hour, then I had -2 for the next hour, and then I had -1' — and you...

3 Okt 20241h 25min

Luisa and Keiran on free will, and the consequences of never feeling enduring guilt or shame

Luisa and Keiran on free will, and the consequences of never feeling enduring guilt or shame

In this episode from our second show, 80k After Hours, Luisa Rodriguez and Keiran Harris chat about the consequences of letting go of enduring guilt, shame, anger, and pride.Links to learn more, highl...

27 Sep 20241h 36min

Populært innen Fakta

fastlegen
dine-penger-pengeradet
relasjonspodden-med-dora-thorhallsdottir-kjersti-idem
foreldreradet
treningspodden
rss-strid-de-norske-borgerkrigene
mikkels-paskenotter
rss-bisarr-historie
jakt-og-fiskepodden
sinnsyn
rss-kunsten-a-leve
rss-sunn-okonomi
hverdagspsyken
tomprat-med-gunnar-tjomlid
rss-bak-luftfarten
ukast
fryktlos
gravid-uke-for-uke
lederskap-nhhs-podkast-om-ledelse
rss-kull