Abstract
In contrast to even a year ago, AI systems now write most of the code inside the companies that build them. As more of the AI research and development (R&D) pipeline is automated, could AI progress radically accelerate in an "intelligence explosion," where years of advances are compressed into months or less? Preliminary evidence suggests that it could. In this work, we assess this evidence, analyze an intelligence explosion's potential impacts, and propose policy responses. AI systems are on track to automate most AI R\&D work within a few years, and possibly all of it. If this triggers an intelligence explosion, it could dramatically bring forward AI's benefits, but also pose extreme risks: capabilities growth could accelerate far beyond what society can keep up with, humanity could lose control over superhuman AI systems, and checks on power within and between states, companies, and branches of government could be severely eroded. Although there remains much uncertainty about these possibilities, the high stakes warrant serious further attention. Policymakers should urgently obtain more visibility into the automation of AI R&D, develop ways to steer and constrain an intelligence explosion, and prepare society to adapt to an intelligence explosion's impacts.
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Cite this article
APA 7
Chan, A., Winter, C., Barto, A., Pachocki, J., Hinton, G., Horvitz, E., Bengio, Y., Song, D., Clark, J., Greaves, H., Korinek, A., Hammond, S., Graepel, T., Bariach, B., Torr, P. H. S., McIlraith, S. A., Clune, J., Manning, S., Sastry, G., Davidson, T., Eth, D., & Mindermann, S. (2026). What if automating AI R&D triggers an intelligence explosion? https://omanscience.com/en/articles/what-if-automating-ai-r-d-triggers-an-intelligence-explosion
MLA 9
Chan, Alan, et al. "What if automating AI R&D triggers an intelligence explosion?" https://omanscience.com/en/articles/what-if-automating-ai-r-d-triggers-an-intelligence-explosion.
Chicago (author–date)
Chan, Alan, Christoph Winter, Andrew Barto, Jakub Pachocki, Geoffrey Hinton, Eric Horvitz, Yoshua Bengio, Dawn Song, Jack Clark, Hilary Greaves, Anton Korinek, Samuel Hammond, Thore Graepel, Ben Bariach, Philip H. S. Torr, Sheila A. McIlraith, Jeff Clune, Sam Manning, Girish Sastry, Tom Davidson, Daniel Eth, and Sören Mindermann. 2026. "What if automating AI R&D triggers an intelligence explosion?" https://omanscience.com/en/articles/what-if-automating-ai-r-d-triggers-an-intelligence-explosion.
Harvard
Chan, A., Winter, C., Barto, A., Pachocki, J., Hinton, G., Horvitz, E., Bengio, Y., Song, D., Clark, J., Greaves, H., Korinek, A., Hammond, S., Graepel, T., Bariach, B., Torr, P. H. S., McIlraith, S. A., Clune, J., Manning, S., Sastry, G., Davidson, T., Eth, D. and Mindermann, S. (2026) 'What if automating AI R&D triggers an intelligence explosion?', Available at: https://omanscience.com/en/articles/what-if-automating-ai-r-d-triggers-an-intelligence-explosion.
Vancouver
Chan A, Winter C, Barto A, Pachocki J, Hinton G, Horvitz E, et al. What if automating AI R&D triggers an intelligence explosion? https://omanscience.com/en/articles/what-if-automating-ai-r-d-triggers-an-intelligence-explosion
IEEE
A. Chan, C. Winter, A. Barto, J. Pachocki, G. Hinton, E. Horvitz, Y. Bengio, D. Song, J. Clark, H. Greaves, A. Korinek, S. Hammond, T. Graepel, B. Bariach, P. H. S. Torr, S. A. McIlraith, J. Clune, S. Manning, G. Sastry, T. Davidson, D. Eth, and S. Mindermann, "What if automating AI R&D triggers an intelligence explosion?," https://omanscience.com/en/articles/what-if-automating-ai-r-d-triggers-an-intelligence-explosion.