2023-03 → Present

The AI takeoff is happening.
We're measuring it.

Future Shock maps the accelerating trajectory of artificial intelligence — across models, compute, robotics, research, and open source. Updated daily. No hype. No financial advice. Just the signal.

Six Tracking Axes

The dimensions of acceleration
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Model Capability

Benchmarks, multimodal, agents, context windows, tool use

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Compute & Chips

GPU releases, FLOPs/dollar, training clusters, energy

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Robotics

Humanoid milestones, autonomous deployments, LLM-driven demos

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Research Velocity

arXiv publication rate, breakthrough papers, citation velocity

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Open Source

GitHub commit velocity, AI co-authored code, framework growth

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Policy

Government action, regulation, defense, trade, AI governance

Latest Signals

Updated daily
policy
May 8, 2026

Did xAI just concede the AI race?

Elon Musk had lots of reasons to make a deal with Anthropic — but he wouldn’t have done it if he were ahead. PLUS: The incredible testimony of Shivon Zilis, and a big new study on school phone bans

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May 8, 2026

Why you can never get your doctor to call you back

Like many AI companies automating work that humans currently do, Basata will eventually face a harder question about where the line is between augmenting workers and displacing them. For now, the founders say the administrative staff they work with aren't worried about that; they're more worried about drowning.

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May 8, 2026

OpenAI is rolling out GPT-5.5-Cyber, a security-focused variant of the model, in a limited preview capacity to vetted cybersecurity teams (Sam Sabin/Axios)

Sam Sabin / Axios : OpenAI is rolling out GPT-5.5-Cyber, a security-focused variant of the model, in a limited preview capacity to vetted cybersecurity teams — The capabilities of the new models have sparked an urgent debate in Silicon Valley and the White House about how to keep them out of the hands of bad actors.

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May 8, 2026

A US judge blocks DOGE's termination of $100M in National Endowment for the Humanities grants, saying ChatGPT prompts used to decide the cuts were ill-defined (Zoe Tillman/Bloomberg)

Zoe Tillman / Bloomberg : A US judge blocks DOGE's termination of $100M in National Endowment for the Humanities grants, saying ChatGPT prompts used to decide the cuts were ill-defined — A US judge blasted the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency project for relying on artificial intelligence tools …

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May 8, 2026

Mozilla says Anthropic's Mythos Preview and other AI models helped it identify and ship 423 Firefox security bug fixes in April, compared to 31 a year earlier (Russell Brandom/TechCrunch)

Russell Brandom / TechCrunch : Mozilla says Anthropic's Mythos Preview and other AI models helped it identify and ship 423 Firefox security bug fixes in April, compared to 31 a year earlier — When Anthropic unveiled its new Mythos model in April, it also delivered a stern warning to anyone developing software.

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May 8, 2026

Musk v. Altman Evidence Shows What Microsoft Executives Thought of OpenAI

Leaders at the tech giant were skeptical of OpenAI—but wary of pushing it into the arms of Amazon, according to emails dating back to 2018.

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