Pending ●●●●●
In 2026, AI systems capable of producing genuinely novel insights will arrive.
“2026 will likely see the arrival of systems that can figure out novel insights.”AI
Who gets the future right?
A public record of predictions made by well-known people: their exact words, when they said them, and how things turned out.
Scorecard
| Person | Category | Predictions | Scored | Accurate | Late | Partial | Wrong | Accuracy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bill Gates | Tech leader | 21 | 11 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 55% |
| Dario Amodei | Tech leader | 13 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 50% |
| Demis Hassabis | AI researcher | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| Elon Musk | Tech leader | 10 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 10% |
| Eric Schmidt | Tech leader | 16 | 11 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 41% |
| Jack Dorsey | Tech leader | 6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0% |
| Jensen Huang | Tech leader | 13 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0% |
| Marc Andreessen | Investor | 14 | 10 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 75% |
| Mark Zuckerberg | Tech leader | 16 | 7 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 64% |
| Masayoshi Son | Investor | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| Mustafa Suleyman | Tech leader | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0% |
| Peter Thiel | Investor | 8 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 10% |
| Sam Altman | Tech leader | 16 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 88% |
| Steve Ballmer | Tech leader | 9 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 36% |
| Vinod Khosla | Investor | 13 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 17% |
| Vitalik Buterin | Crypto figure | 9 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 75% |
| Yann LeCun | AI researcher | 7 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0% |
Accuracy counts accurate as 1, late or partial as ½, inaccurate as 0. Pending predictions don't count.
Predictions
Pending ●●●●●
By late October 2026, most of the code for Meta's AI (Llama) research efforts will be written by AI.
“I would guess that sometime in the next 12 to 18 months, we'll reach the point where most of the code that's going toward these efforts is written by AI.”AITechnology
Unresolvable ●●●●●
By about April 2026, roughly half of Meta's (Llama) software development will be done by AI rather than people.
“our bet is sort of that in the next year... maybe half the development is going to be done by AI as opposed to people”AITechnology
Pending ●●●●●
Artificial general intelligence will arrive within five to ten years, i.e. by April 2035.
“In the next five to ten years, I think.”AI
Pending ●●●●●
AI-driven robotics will have a breakthrough moment by about April 2027, with demonstrations of humanoid or other robots doing genuinely useful things.
“I also think another big area will be robotics. I think it will have a breakthrough moment in the next couple of years where we'll have demonstrations of maybe humanoid robots or other types of robots that can start really doing useful things.”TechnologyAI
Pending ●●●●●
By about April 2035, AI systems will be able to come up with important new scientific problems or conjectures themselves, not just solve existing ones.
“I think actually in the next maybe five to ten years. I think we'll have systems that are capable of not only solving an important problem or conjecture in science but coming up with it in the first place.”AI
Pending ●●●●●
Artificial general intelligence, as smart as the smartest human experts across fields, will exist within five years of April 2025 (by April 2030).
“within three to five years we'll have what is called general intelligence, AGI”AI
Inaccurate ●●●●●
By April 2026, the vast majority of human programmers will have been replaced by AI programmers.
“So we believe as an industry that in the next one year the vast majority of programmers will be replaced by AI programmers.”AIEconomy
Partly right ●●●●●
By April 2026, AI systems will perform at the level of top graduate mathematics students.
“We also believe that within one year you will have graduate level mathematicians that are at the tippy top of graduate math programs.”AI
Pending ●●●●●
US data centers will need an additional 29 GW of power by 2027 and a further 67 GW by 2030.
“One of the estimates that I think is most likely is that data centers will require an additional 29 gigawatts of power by 2027, and 67 more gigawatts by 2030.”EnergyAI
Pending ●●●●●
Humanoid robots will be in widespread use (starting in factories) within a few years, before 2030.
“when, literally, humanoid robots are wandering around, which is not five years away. This is not five-years-away problem, this is a few-years-away problem.”AITechnology
Pending ●●●●●
Annual worldwide data center build-out (capital spending) will reach $1 trillion within about two years, by March 2027.
“I've said before that I expect data center build out to reach a trillion dollars, and I am fairly certain we're going to reach that very soon”AITechnologyMarkets
Pending ●●●●●
By 2045, the bipedal/humanoid robot industry will be larger than the auto industry.
“I think what I would say is this business of bipedal robots or some equivalent like that in various form factors and configurations will be larger than the auto industry within 20 years.”TechnologyAI
Pending ●●●●●
The US (Nvidia) will stay strongly ahead of China (Huawei) in AI chip hardware for the next ten years (to 2035); the gap will close only over 10-20 years.
“Nvidia is way ahead of Huawei, which is the main producer of—which is the main producer of chips for China. Like something like four years ahead. I think that gap is going to close eventually, over the course of, I don’t know, ten or twenty years. Probably the export controls ma…”GeopoliticsAITechnology
Pending ●●●●●
Within two to four years (by March 2029), AI models will be as intelligent as Nobel Prize winners across many fields and able to do any remote computer work, including tasks lasting days to months.
“the same exponential trends, the same arguments that predicted that, predict that if we go forward another two years, three years, maybe four years, we will get to all of this. We will get to models that are as intelligent as Nobel Prize winners across a whole bunch of fields.”AI
Partly right ●●●●●
AI will be writing 90% of all code within three to six months (by September 2025), and may be writing essentially all code within twelve months.
“we are not far from the world—I think we’ll be there in three to six months—where AI is writing 90 percent of the code. And then in twelve months, we may be in a world where AI is writing essentially all of the code.”AI
Pending ●●●●●
AI systems with capabilities akin to a "country of geniuses in a datacenter" will exist possibly by 2026-2027 and almost certainly no later than 2030.
“Possibly by 2026 or 2027 (and almost certainly no later than 2030), the capabilities of AI systems will be best thought of as akin to an entirely new state populated by highly intelligent people appearing on the global stage—a "country of geniuses in a datacenter"”AI
Accurate ●●●●●
Despite AI advances, people in 2025 will spend their time mostly the same way they did in 2024.
“Life will go on mostly the same in the short run, and people in 2025 will mostly spend their time in the same way they did in 2024.”AI
Unresolvable ●●●●●
By the end of 2025, an OpenAI model will rank as the world's number one competitive programmer.
“I think our internal benchmark is now around 50, and maybe we'll hit number one by the end of this year.”AI
Pending ●●●●●
By early 2035, AI will make expert-quality medical advice and tutoring (the expertise of a great doctor or teacher) free and commonplace.
“with AI, over the next decade, that will become free, commonplace — great medical advice, great tutoring,”AIHealth
Pending ●●●●●
Artificial general intelligence will arrive sooner than his previous "two or three years" forecast, i.e. by the end of 2027.
“But now I have corrected that statement and I feel that AGI will actually arrive much sooner than that”AI
Pending ●●●●●
Threads will become the leading online discussion platform and reach 1 billion users within the next several years.
“I expect Threads to continue on its trajectory to become the leading discussion platform and eventually reach 1 billion people over the next several years.”Technology
Partly right ●●●●●
During 2025 it will become possible to build an AI engineering agent with the coding and problem-solving ability of a good mid-level software engineer.
“I also expect that 2025 will be the year when it becomes possible to build an AI engineering agent that has coding and problem-solving abilities of around a good mid-level engineer.”AITechnology
Accurate ●●●●●
In 2025, a personalized AI assistant (expected to be Meta AI) will reach more than 1 billion people.
“In AI, I expect this is going to be the year when a highly intelligent and personalized AI assistant reaches more than 1 billion people, and I expect Meta AI to be that leading AI assistant.”AI
Pending ●●●●●
AI that is smarter than almost all humans at almost all things will most likely be built in 2026-2027.
“Making AI that is smarter than almost all humans at almost all things will require millions of chips, tens of billions of dollars (at least), and is most likely to happen in 2026-2027.”AI
Pending ●●●●●
By 2026-2027, multiple US companies will each have millions of AI chips (costing tens of billions of dollars).
“This means that in 2026-2027 we could end up in one of two starkly different worlds. In the US, multiple companies will definitely have the required millions of chips (at the cost of tens of billions of dollars).”AITechnologyGeopolitics
Pending ●●●●●
By January 2030, current-style large language models will no longer be used (at least as the central component of AI systems).
“I think within five years, nobody in their right mind would use them anymore,”AI
Pending ●●●●●
Artificial general intelligence (a system with all human cognitive capabilities) will be reached within three to five years, i.e. by about January 2030.
“I think we're probably three to five years away.”AI
Pending ●●●●●
Very useful quantum computers will not arrive before roughly 2040, most likely around 2045, and by 2055 at the latest.
“15 years for useful quantum computers and that would be on the early side. 30 years is probably on the late side. If you picked 20 years a whole bunch of us would believe it.”Technology
Pending ●●●●●
Within about ten years (by January 2035), essentially every car will be robotic (self-driving capable).
“And every car is going to be robotic. Humanoid robots, the technology necessary to make it possible, is just around the corner.”Self-drivingAI