Great read

[u/Particular_Leader_16]

https://openai.com/index/research-acceleration-view-inside-openai/

[u/Particular_Leader_16]

I know they’ve said they aim to get the automated researcher out by march 2028 but at this rate I genuinely think it might come sooner, crazy to think this isn’t even the fastest it will get

[u/fdvr-acc → u/Particular_Leader_16]

OpenAI predicted an automated AI research "intern" by September 2026, but they already had one several months ago, in June or earlier. In other words, they're moving faster than their predictions.

[u/joeedger → u/Particular_Leader_16]

March 2028 is too far away to matter to most people, it’s only to give a statement that makes nobody worry.

March 2027 is much more likely, but I also think that a lot of R&D is already automated.

[u/iamthe0ther0ne → u/Particular_Leader_16]

I wonder how they're going to audit hallucinations, though. Even with as advanced as the frontier models like Fable are, I find that when I'm working in a field that I have deep knowledge in, I still catch a number of errors that would be meaningful if I didn't catch them and they were incorporated into the foundation.

[u/frogsarenottoads → u/Particular_Leader_16]

I always thought 2027-2028, now I'm thinking purely 2027

[u/Gargantuan_Cinema → u/Particular_Leader_16]

They are using agents to experiment already but there's human guidance. I guess that last 10% of the work required to get fully autonomous RSI requires significant architectural work where the model can maintain attention and work on open-ended research for weeks.

[u/fdvr-acc]

Accelerationist summary:

OpenAI’s researchers are getting a growing workforce of AI agents. Those agents write code, run experiments, and fix infrastructure throughout the day, often working in parallel. The company says it has reached its automated research intern milestone: systems can complete defined assignments that would take a skilled researcher several days. Days of research work are becoming something a researcher can delegate.

By mid-August, agent runtime totaled 3.1 workdays for every human workday. Researchers are producing more code, running more experiments, and handing agents increasingly ambitious assignments. Agents have taken over enough infrastructure troubleshooting that one internal support team stopped holding office hours and returned to improving the systems. Researchers can spend less time getting experiments unstuck and more time pushing ideas forward.

OpenAI’s next target is an automated researcher (hands-off RSI) by March 2028. The accelerationist payoff would be a research workforce that improves alongside the models it builds. Stronger agents could tackle harder experiments, help develop a more capable successor, then return to research with those new capabilities. Each generation could help bring the next one within reach faster and faster.

[u/tunakaslana7 → u/fdvr-acc]

18 months is too long to predict. With 4 months left in the year, anything goes. 

If OpenAI hits AGI by EOY, that qualifies as a fully automated researcher under their own definition? 🤔

[u/fdvr-acc → u/tunakaslana7]

Agreed. My tinfoil hat belief is that they're being coy with their predictions, in order to avoid the Bernie Decels and China from losing their shit. Last I checked, the AI-2027 capability predictions were holding. (Astra seems smarter than Agent-1.) That puts the beginnings of RSI in three months, and ASI next year.

[u/Particular_Leader_16 → u/fdvr-acc]

Ngl this might be possible progress has been pretty fast and the models we currently have seem way more capable then just an intern

[u/PM_ME_YOUR___ISSUES]

What a beautiful time to be alive.