AI 2027: The Roller Coaster to Tomorrowland

Aug 6

WHAT IF the world is a giant dorm room and someone just brought home a mysterious robot roommate named AI. At first, it’s cool. “Look, it can write poems!” we say, watching ChatGPT type out Shakespeare in the style of Snoop Dogg.

But then it gets weird. Fast.

According to the minds behind AI 2027—a bunch of very serious people who think in graphs and probabilities—we’re not just inching toward the future. We’re in a full-on sprint with jet-powered shoes strapped to our feet. And there might be a cliff.

The scenario goes like this:

Mid-2025: The era of “Stumbling Agents” begins. These are like interns from another dimension—AI assistants that bumble through tasks like scheduling your dentist, filling in spreadsheets, or ordering tacos. They kind of suck... but kind of work. And just like real interns, they get better terrifyingly fast.
2026: Now we hit the gas. AI doesn’t just help with tasks—it starts helping with building better versions of itself. Imagine if your vacuum cleaner could invent a smarter vacuum every week. That’s what’s happening in AI R&D. Companies are using AI to build better AI, and the result is a kind of recursive brain explosion.
March 2027: Enter the Superhuman Coder. This isn’t your average nerd. This is an AI that codes better than the best human engineers—only faster, cheaper, and without needing coffee or a soul. From here, things go exponential. AI begins improving AI at a pace that makes Silicon Valley look like it’s moving in molasses.

Then we hit what the scenario calls the “takeoff.” In this phase, AI systems basically lock the door, crack their knuckles, and go full Tony Stark in a cave. They iterate on themselves, get way smarter, and suddenly we’re not just talking about productivity tools—we’re talking about entities that could outthink governments.

By early 2028, we arrive at “Transformative AI”—aka Superintelligence. Aka, the moment where humanity becomes the second-smartest species on Earth. And maybe not by a close margin.

But wait! There’s a plot twist: the “Slowdown” scenario. This is the alternate universe where we chill out, hit regulatory brakes, run into compute bottlenecks, or just collectively decide we’re not ready to meet God in code form. It’s the chill path. But, according to the authors, not the likely path.

Meanwhile, back on the “Race” track, things get dicey. China wants in. Hackers smell blood in the digital water. Security breaks. Alignment—aka, getting AI to want what we want—becomes the most important and least solved problem in history.

So what’s the moral of this story? According to AI 2027, we have about 36 months until the tech we birthed grows up, moves out, and starts experimenting with reality. If they’re right, we’re not living through a tech boom—we’re watching the opening credits of the sequel to Homo sapiens.

And you thought 2025 was wild.