The Shape of the Thing
One Useful Thing Ethan Mollick
AI systems have advanced from co-intelligence tools requiring human prompting to autonomous agents capable of completing hours of work in minutes, with capabilities demonstrated across benchmarks like the Google-Proof Q&A (94% accuracy) and GDPval (82% parity with top human performance). StrongDM's Software Factory represents a radical organizational experiment where AI agents write, test, and ship production code without human involvement, requiring $1,000 per day in AI token costs per engineer. As AI capabilities continue improving exponentially and companies pursue recursive self-improvement where AI systems build better AI systems, organizations face unpredictable disruption across markets, employment, and governance, creating an unstable near-term environment where current choices about AI deployment will set precedents.
Why it matters
Where we are right now, and what likely happens next
