In a lecture at the IMF meeting in Bangkok on October 17, Jack Clark, co-founder of Anthropic and a former OpenAI staffer, told an audience of economists and policymakers that the singularity has begun. He argued that AI systems are now operating at the frontier of human science, sometimes autonomously, and that the pace of progress in science as a whole will speed up dramatically.
Clark pointed to AI's role in national security and economic change, and to its growing ability to contribute to its own development. He cited software development as the clearest example: AI systems are now more capable than most human engineers, and at Anthropic researchers produce nearly ten times as much code as they did in the company's first four years.
He warned that this acceleration will bring both great wealth and great peril, and that the most important implication is that progress across all fields will speed up. He urged the assembled officials to prepare for significant, rapid change and to exercise foresight and restraint so that the benefits of AI-driven scientific invention are shared broadly.