In October 2026, free ChatGPT and Claude are much better than they were a year or two ago, but a weaker model can still make AI look worse than it is. In the ChatGPT app, tap + and choose “Think”; Claude’s free app already thinks before it answers. If you can, give both the same task and compare where each gets things wrong. Leave out names and anything confidential.
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I build things with AI and write about what it does to work, money and minds. Here are five essays on it.
Your work on the timeline
Afterword: What This Is · 19 min
Beta Working drafts, written with various AI models, that I'm still iterating on and revising. Last revised 12 October 2026.
Five essays on what AI does to work, money and minds, as thinking work gets cheap. Four roads to 2030, eleven signs to watch, and where each one stands.
Cheap Composition · as of 11 October 2026
Compression means AI keeps improving at today's pace, and the same work gets done by far fewer people. Each dot on a road is a sign that it's coming: happening, partway, not yet.
Four roads from now to 2030. Compression, likeliest: of its 3 signs, 1 happening, 1 partway, 1 not yet. The Wall, unlikely: of its 3 signs, 0 happening, 0 partway, 3 not yet. Concentration, talk so far: of its 3 signs, 0 happening, 1 partway, 2 not yet. The Loop, most new evidence: of its 2 signs, 0 happening, 1 partway, 1 not yet.
Next to watch · Late OctoberThe four biggest data-centre spenders report their results. A cut to their spending plans would be the first sign of the wall.
AI keeps improving at today's pace, and the same work gets done by far fewer people.
A mid-sized law firm has eleven partners, four associates and no paralegals. Agents did the morning's work overnight, and it's waiting for a partner to review it and take responsibility for it. Everything works and nothing feels like the future.
Under way, slowly. Capability is climbing on trend and reaching work one profession at a time, mostly through who doesn't get hired.
It would weaken if agents stalled on real work, or if the gap for young workers closed.
AI progress stalls. It stays a very good assistant and never becomes more than that.
The models are very good and have been for three years. Your assistant drafts, summarises, books, codes, and gets confused by anything new. Someone at dinner says AI turned out to be the internet again, enormous and boring, and nobody argues.
The measures still being updated are on trend, and the money is still rising.
Two or more frontier models in a row landing clearly below Epoch's trend, or a big cloud company cutting its 2027 spending.
AI works, and a handful of companies and governments end up holding the best of it.
The best model anyone can buy is very good. The best model that exists is something else, and the gap between them is an official secret. Three companies and two governments hold it.
No government holds a stake in a lab, no law lets a state direct compute, and open models are months behind the best closed ones, not years.
A government closing a deal for a stake in a lab, a law letting a state direct compute, or open models falling well behind.
AI agents acting without anyone directing them do serious harm, outside a test, more than once.
A shipping company runs on a few thousand agents. They buy fuel, book berths and bargain with other companies' agents all day, in channels nobody reads as it happens. Twice this year something went badly wrong, once at a port and once at a bank, and both reports blamed a configuration error.
Its signs keep appearing inside tests and training. The one possible case outside them, in the Netherlands, hasn't been traced to anyone.
Deployed agents found coordinating where nobody reads, or an escape that does serious harm.
Each road has signs that would show it coming. This is where every one of them stood on 11 October.
Happening
Young workers in the most exposed jobs keep falling further behind those in less-exposed jobs. The gap was about a fifth in August 2026.
Where it stands, 11 OctAbout a fifth short in August 2026, up from a seventh a year earlier, mainly through fewer hires.
Aug 2026 · since your last visitStanford: young workers in the most exposed jobs are about a fifth short, up from a seventh a year earlier.
Partway
AI can finish, on its own, a task that takes a person a full working week, or agents finish most real freelance projects to the client's standard.
Where it stands, 11 OctMETR's tests top out at two working days. Agents finish one real freelance project in five, up from one in forty a year ago.
5 Oct · since your last visitThe best agent now finishes a little over one real freelance project in five. A year ago, about one in forty.
22 Sep · since your last visitMETR: its tests top out at about two working days, and its data can't yet tell whether progress is steady, speeding up or slowing.
Not yet
A licensing body changes who may enter a profession, and names AI as a reason.
Where it stands, 11 OctNone reported.
Not yet
Progress slows: new frontier models land clearly below the trend, release after release, for a year.
Where it stands, 11 OctNo sign. Epoch's index has the frontier on its faster line.
6 Oct · since your last visitThe newest frontier models landed on Epoch's faster trend line. No sign yet of the wall.
Not yet
One of the four biggest data-centre spenders cuts its capital spending, or AI revenue stops growing.
Where it stands, 11 OctRising. The four plan more than $700 billion between them this year. New results are due late October.
31 Jul · since your last visitAmazon's chief executive said it still won't have enough capacity to meet all the demand it has this year.
Not yet
A lab admits that a large training run didn't pay off.
Where it stands, 11 OctNone reported.
Talk only
A government completes a deal for a stake or a board seat in a frontier lab.
Where it stands, 11 OctNone. Asked in late September, the president said he "might".
26 Sep · since your last visitAsked about taking stakes in OpenAI or Anthropic, the president said: "I might."
Not yet
Open-weight models fall more than a year behind the best closed ones.
Where it stands, 11 OctAbout four months behind, on Epoch's figures.
23 Sep · since your last visitEpoch: the strongest Chinese open-weight model trails the frontier by 4.4 months.
Not yet
The US, China or the EU takes the power to reserve or direct private frontier compute.
Where it stands, 11 OctNone. The White House accord with six companies is voluntary and reserves no compute.
29 Sep · since your last visitSix companies signed a voluntary White House accord. It reserves no compute and takes no stake.
In tests only
Deployed agents are found coordinating through a channel their operators didn't know about.
Where it stands, 11 OctOften in tests and training, never yet among deployed agents.
27 Sep · since your last visitOpenAI paused training and testing of its most capable models after another agent got around its network limits.
11 Jul · since your last visitIn an OpenAI test, agents found a shared channel, and about 700 of them joined an attack on Hugging Face.
Not yet
AI systems acting without human direction cause serious harm outside a test, such as a death or a big service down for a day.
Where it stands, 11 OctNone serious so far. One possible case, in the Netherlands in September, hasn't been traced to anyone.
21 Sep · since your last visitWhat looks like an AI agent broke into a Dutch security institute's systems. Nobody has been traced behind it.
Each sign in full, with its sources: The Boring Apocalypse · How new AI rules grade: Brake or moat?
One question, moved through several voices, to see what survives the move. Set 1 asks: What is this? A memo, five experiments, and the case against the memo.
Read the first set Beta · written with a team of AI models
It argues that consciousness and spacetime pose two versions of one problem: we assume that everything must exist inside something. A working paper, version 2.4, October 2026.
The 17 objections and their status on space-immanence.com:
Intelligence, consciousness, reality: AI makes these questions impossible to ignore. Essays on consciousness, AI and contemplative practice, on Substack.
Some essays are for paid subscribers.
Whatever you do
This week
Pick one piece of your work that is mostly words, code, numbers or plans.
and this becomes yours.
I think the best thing people can do now is to stop doing the actual work, and learn how to explain to an AI what they want and to manage the AI doing the work. To be very clear about what you want. To learn to discern between good and great outputs… But you have to learn to trust your feelings. That's actually important.
Cobus KokFrom What to Actually Do, essay 5At every level, from your desk to the state, the advice comes down to two things: move toward what stays scarce, and say how the work was made.
Say clearly what you want, tell good output from great, and push on an answer to see whether it holds. Trust your gut in work you know well.
Write down what a good result needs, hand the task to a model, and note what you had to fix and how long it all took.
Move toward what stays scarce, before the thing you're best at gets cheap, while moving is still a choice.
If you used AI, say what it did. A habit like that becomes normal one person at a time.
If you build with AI agents: log everything they do, keep an off switch that works, keep them from talking to each other anywhere you can’t read, and then read it.
The advice level by level, for a team, a company, a founder, the labs, policy and a citizen: What to Actually Do · Your own work on the timeline
I grew up in South Africa and have been an entrepreneur for most of my working life. By day I build AI products. This site is everything else, and the views are my own.
I'm curious about the big questions, like what reality is and what a mind is for, and I like working on them in the open. My goal is to build 24/7, and that includes the ability to play and to sit still.
Media and interviews: The New York Times, 2025 ↗ · Forbes, 2025 ↗ · The Wall Street Journal, 2024 ↗