WSJ: A Claude agent dug through the company’s Slack messages and internal documents to identify 15,000 tasks of AI R&D work. A Claude detective investigated exactly how that work was done. Then a Claude judge weighed the evidence and rated the work on a six-level scale, from no AI to fully autonomous AI.
Now take [a] look at that chart [below] and you’ll notice that something extraordinary is happening inside Anthropic.
The most telling bars are the ones in orange for “AI leads,” meaning it performs most of the R&D while a human supervises—the fifth of the six levels.
A year ago, AI led none of this work. As recently as March, it only led 1%. By August, Claude was leading 26% of the work on future Claudes. And that number is almost certainly higher today.
Even as the company’s researchers delegate to AI, it’s worth remembering that 0% of this work is being done entirely by AI. It still hasn’t reached the sixth level of automation. But at this rate of progress, AI taking us out of the loop might just be a matter of time, computing power and the decisions of human beings inside the labs.
“We are not there yet, and recursive self-improvement is not inevitable,” Anthropic recently wrote. “But it could come sooner than most institutions are prepared for.”
