The week in the forecasts · 30 Oct 2026

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +1100

Hassabis puts human-level AI two to three years out Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis says he is 'updating nearer and nearer', but still expects human-level AGI in two to three years. That cuts against the Guide's boldest call, genuine human-level AGI by the end of 2026, now at 55% with two months left. (Forecast: Dec 2026, Signal: my call — genuine human-level AGI ships by end of 2026.)

Humanoid robots are still in pilots with two months to go Agility's Digit robots head to two more GXO warehouses after moving 100,000+ totes, Audi is testing humanoids in a lab and about 1,000 competed in Shanghai. Real progress, but pilots and demos: nothing in the show's news is near thousands on live factory lines by December. (Forecast: Oct 2026, Humanoid robots move onto live factory lines in the thousands, but remain far short of general physical labor.)

Data centres turn into a voter issue A CNBC survey found broad opposition among US voters to AI data centres near them, even among Trump's own voters, the same week Amazon dropped four planned Northern Virginia sites after local pushback. Still local fights, but edging toward the national constraint the Guide expects by 2027. (Forecast: Jul 2027, Datacenter power, water and grid capacity become top-tier infrastructure and political constraints.)

Plan for software agents before robots or AGI This week's news points to the next year's change coming from software agents doing hours of computer work under review, not from humanoid robots or a sudden AGI. A practical step: pick one multi-hour computer task in your own work, try an agent on it with a person checking every result, and note where it fails.

The Singularity Daily · The week in the forecasts

The week in the forecasts · 30 Oct 2026