Have We Seen an Acceleration in Discoveries?

An impressive AI-assisted discovery does not by itself show that an entire field is advancing faster. This METR research note looks for changes in the pace of publicly recorded discoveries across security, mathematics and algorithmic optimization, rather than counting selected success stories.

Its opening analysis finds a sharp acceleration in vulnerability disclosures, some harder-to-measure acceleration in mathematics, and no clear acceleration in algorithmic optimization. But disclosure records are imperfect measures of discovery: private work is missing, reporting practices can change, and counts do not establish the value or cause of each result. The data were collected and analyzed by agents, then audited with acknowledged remaining uncertainty. The note is a way to investigate acceleration, not a clean estimate of how much progress AI caused.