"We make a tentative calibration of the self-sustaining ac
celeration condition using the existing data that is available, measuring AI capabilities using the Epoch Capabilities Index (Ho et al., 2025).<p>We find that the condition is met if a one-unit increase in AI model capabilities results in at least <i>15%</i> higher AI R&D pro ductivity.<p>A rough back-of-the-envelope calculation based on reported AI engineer uplift
suggests this return has been around <i>9%</i> since the launch of coding agents.<p>This number is below the model-implied threshold, suggesting we are not experiencing a self-sustaining acceleration."<p>And the source of this data seems to be self-reported productivity gains from
surveys: 1.4–2X in METR’s survey of technical workers (Becker, 2026).<p>A bit flimsy basis but an interesting paper nonetheless.