20 October 2026

Mollick reviews 30 months of AI progress alongside new book

First reported

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  • Ethan Mollick, a Wharton professor who writes about AI, used the release of his second book to review AI progress over the past 30 months.
  • He says the length of tasks AI can complete reliably has doubled on a regular schedule, according to research from METR, an independent AI evaluation group.
  • He also reports that the price of using these systems has fallen sharply, while their abilities remain uneven across different kinds of tasks.

How it was covered

One Useful ThingEthan Mollick

Book launch, METR task-length trend, falling AI prices, model leadership changes, jagged capability, the conjurer work style, an AI-generated otter video