Which Scott Aaronson AI world will come to pass? (Metaculus forecast, 2027-12-31)

Question

Based on Scott Aaronson's Five Worlds of AI and this metaculus question. Other versions of this question use far future dates; this one instead attempts to forecast the Metaculus opinion as of the end of 2027. This question will resolve PROB in proportion to the Metaculus forecast at that time.

(https://www.metaculus.com/questions/embed/20683)AI-Fizzle. In this scenario, AI “runs out of steam” fairly soon. AI still has a significant impact on the world (so it’s not the same as a “cryptocurrency fizzle”), but relative to current expectations, this would be considered a disappointment. Rather than the industrial or computer revolutions, AI might be compared in this case to nuclear power: people were initially thrilled about the seemingly limitless potential, but decades later, that potential remains mostly unrealized.

Futurama. In this scenario, AI unleashes a revolution that’s entirely comparable to the scientific, industrial, or information revolutions (but “merely” those). AI systems grow significantly in capabilities and perform many of the tasks currently performed by human experts at a small fraction of the cost, in some domains superhumanly. However, AI systems are still used as tools by humans, and except for a few fringe thinkers, no one treats them as sentient. AI easily passes the Turing test, can prove hard theorems, and can generate entertaining content (as well as deepfakes). But humanity gets used to that, just like we got used to computers creaming us in chess, translating text, and generating special effects in movies.

AI-Dystopia. The technical assumptions of “AI-Dystopia” are similar to those of “Futurama,” but the upshot could hardly be more different. Here, again, AI unleashes a revolution on the scale of the industrial or computer revolutions, but the change is markedly for the worse. AI greatly increases the scale of surveillance by government and private corporations. It causes massive job losses while enriching a tiny elite. It entrenches society’s existing inequalities and biases. And it takes away a central tool against oppression: namely, the ability of humans to refuse or subvert orders.

Singularia. Here AI breaks out of the current paradigm, where increasing capabilities require ever-growing resources of data and computation, and no longer needs human data or human-provided hardware and energy to become stronger at an ever-increasing pace. AIs improve their own intellectual capabilities, including by developing new science, and (whether by deliberate design or happenstance) they act as goal-oriented agents in the physical world. They can effectively be thought of as an alien civilization–or perhaps as a new species, which is to us as we were to Homo erectus. Fortunately, though (and again, whether by careful design or just as a byproduct of their human origins), the AIs act to us like benevolent gods and lead us to an “AI utopia.” They solve our material problems for us, giving us unlimited abundance and presumably virtual-reality adventures of our choosing.

Paperclipalypse. In “Paperclipalypse” or “AI Doom,” we again think of future AIs as a superintelligent “alien race” that doesn’t need humanity for its own development. Here, though, the AIs are either actively opposed to human existence or else indifferent to it in a way that causes our extinction as a byproduct. In this scenario, AIs do not develop a notion of morality comparable to ours or even a notion that keeping a diversity of species and ensuring humans don’t go extinct might be useful to them in the long run. Rather, the interaction between AI and Homo sapiens ends about the same way that the interaction between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals ended.

Other versions of this market:

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Manifold Markets · Answer

Per Manifold Markets prediction market, Futurama: AI tech produces great advances but our civilization recognizably continues, followed by AI-Dystopia: AI tech produces great harm but our civilization recognizably continues and Singularia: AI is autonomous and acts as "benevolent gods" are most likely. See the market for live updates (8 traders, as of May 18, 2026).