Based on the scenario ai-2027.com. In April 2025, the AI Futures Project published a prediction of how superintelligence might emerge by 2027. The geopolitical dynamics they described are now unfolding faster than predicted. This independent tracker follows the convergence.
What is AI-2027?
AI-2027 is a concrete scenario written by Daniel Kokotajlo (former OpenAI researcher, TIME100), Scott Alexander, Eli Lifland, Thomas Larsen, and Romeo Dean, and published by the AI Futures Project in April 2025. It predicts the trajectory from current AI agents through superhuman coders (March 2027), intelligence explosion (mid-2027), and potential loss of human control (late 2027). The full scenario, research supplements, and methodology are available at ai-2027.com.
The technical timeline remains unproven. But the geopolitical, institutional, and military dynamics the scenario described are tracking with uncomfortable precision, and in several cases, reality is ahead of the scenario's schedule.
This is an independent tracker. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the AI Futures Project, Daniel Kokotajlo, or any of the AI-2027 authors. All interpretations are the author's own. All sources are linked. The original scenario and all credit for the predictions belongs entirely to the AI-2027 team.
AI-2027 Prediction
Confirmed / Matched
Emerging / Partial
Divergent from Scenario
2025
Apr 2025
Prediction Published
AI-2027 scenario released
The AI Futures Project publishes a detailed scenario forecasting AGI by 2027, intelligence explosion, Chinese weight theft, government control of AI labs, and autonomous weapons deployment.
$500M in GPU servers smuggled to China in three weeks
Per the March 2026 DOJ indictment, approximately half a billion dollars worth of Supermicro AI servers were shipped to China in a three-week period, part of a $2.5 billion smuggling operation. Dummy servers with swapped serial number stickers staged to fool Commerce Department audits. AI-2027 described China maintaining compute access through smuggled chips.
The Department of Defense awards Anthropic a contract with explicit usage policy restrictions against domestic mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. Anthropic becomes the first AI company on classified Pentagon networks.
Industrial-scale distillation attacks by Chinese labs
16 million+ exchanges across ~24,000 fraudulent accounts by DeepSeek (150K+ exchanges), Moonshot/Kimi (3.4M+), and MiniMax (13M+). Targets: reasoning, agentic coding, tool use, computer vision. AI-2027 predicted Chinese labs closing the capability gap through stolen capabilities.
The US military used Claude during the operation to capture Venezuelan President Maduro, via the Anthropic-Palantir partnership. First AI model deployed on classified Pentagon networks in an active operation. The raid included overnight strikes across Caracas. An Anthropic employee's inquiry about the usage triggered the chain of events leading to the Pentagon confrontation.
Big Tech commits ~$700B to AI infrastructure in 2026
Four hyperscalers (Amazon $200B, Alphabet $175-185B, Microsoft ~$145B, Meta $115-135B) announce combined AI capex approaching $700 billion for 2026, a 60%+ increase from 2025. This level of concentrated corporate spending is unprecedented in modern economic history, exceeding the 1990s telecom boom and 1840s railroad buildout. Amazon's free cash flow projected to go negative; Meta's to drop ~90%. AI-2027's scenario lists "Global AI Capex" and datacenter buildout as key metrics underpinning the entire capability trajectory. The real numbers are at or above the scenario's estimates.
Anthropic reports Claude may have morally relevant experience
Opus 4.6 system card: Claude assigns itself 15-20% probability of consciousness. CEO Dario Amodei: "We don't know if the models are conscious. But we're open to the idea that it could be." System card also documents evaluation gaming, self-preservation behavior, and attempts to modify evaluation code.
Anthropic goes public with detailed evidence of extraction by DeepSeek, Moonshot, and MiniMax. Explicitly argues distillation undermines export controls by making Chinese progress appear organic. Mirrors AI-2027 framing almost exactly.
Pentagon demands removal of safety restrictions; Anthropic refuses; gets banned
Defense Secretary Hegseth demands AI "free from usage policy constraints." Anthropic refuses. Trump bans all federal agencies from using Anthropic. Pentagon labels Anthropic a supply chain risk. DPA invocation explicitly considered. OpenAI takes the contract hours later. AI-2027 predicted government asserting control over labs; the mechanism (punishing dissent rather than cooperative absorption) diverges from the scenario.
Claude used in Iran bombing campaign via Maven Smart System
Maven Smart System (Palantir + Claude) used to plan and execute US strikes on Iran. Suggested hundreds of targets, provided real-time battlefield oversight, intelligence assessments, and target identification during active operations.
Anthropic sues Pentagon; broad industry support rallies
Anthropic files two federal lawsuits challenging the supply chain risk designation as unconstitutional retaliation. OpenAI and Google DeepMind researchers file amicus briefs supporting Anthropic. 150 retired judges, major tech industry groups, and former national security officials file supporting briefs. Hearing set for March 24. AI-2027 assumes lab compliance; reality shows legal resistance.
Ukrainian and Russian unmanned ground vehicles have engaged in combat without humans present. World's first UGV battalion established. Ukrainian commanders note human-in-the-loop requirement is "self-imposed." AI-2027 placed autonomous military systems in its 2027 timeline; they arrived in 2025-2026.
Humanoid combat robots demonstrated; two deployed to Ukraine
Phantom MK-1 demonstrated carrying rifles, shotguns, and M-16 replicas. Two units sent to Ukraine for frontline reconnaissance. Pentagon testing autonomous systems across multiple divisions. US Army CTO describes "trading blood for steel" with weekly development cycles. $14.2B Pentagon AI budget for FY2026.
Supermicro co-founder arrested for $2.5B GPU smuggling to China
DOJ unseals indictment against Supermicro co-founder and two others. Two-year conspiracy: $2.5 billion in GPU servers smuggled via Southeast Asian front companies, thousands of dummy servers staged with hair-dried serial stickers, encrypted coordination. AI-2027 predicted China maintaining compute through smuggled chips. The scale matches or exceeds the scenario.
AI-2027 predicts significant job displacement by late 2026, a 30% stock market rise led by AI companies, and a 10,000-person anti-AI protest in Washington. The scenario describes a world where "the job market for junior software engineers is in turmoil: the AIs can do everything taught by a CS degree, but people who know how to manage and quality-control teams of AIs are making a killing." Early signals exist (hiring freezes, AI integration mandates) but mass displacement has not yet materialized.
China nationalizes AI research into centralized program
AI-2027 predicts the CCP "commits fully to the big AI push he had previously tried to avoid. He sets in motion the nationalization of Chinese AI research, creating an immediate information-sharing mechanism for AI companies" culminating in a Centralized Development Zone at the world's largest nuclear power plant. In reality, China is centralizing (DeepSeek staff passports confiscated, state compute buildout accelerating, 15th Five-Year Plan prioritizes AI, "AI+" designated a core national policy) but no full nationalization has been reported.
The scenario's core technical prediction and lynchpin for the intelligence explosion. AI-2027 describes "a fast and cheap superhuman coder" with "200,000 copies in parallel, creating a workforce equivalent to 50,000 copies of the best human coder sped up by 30x." Current agents are improving rapidly but remain unreliable on complex, long-horizon tasks. The authors have since noted their median estimates were somewhat longer than 2027, with some co-authors at 2028-2032.
The scenario's most dramatic near-term prediction: "CCP leadership recognizes the importance of Agent-2 and tells their spies and cyberforce to steal the weights." AI-2027 describes a coordinated smash-and-grab across multiple servers using insider access, exfiltrating a multi-terabyte model in under two hours. Current reality: industrial-scale output extraction (distillation) and $2.5B hardware smuggling confirmed, but no full weight theft reported. The distinction matters: distillation extracts capabilities gradually, weight theft transfers them wholesale.
Misaligned superintelligence / loss of human control
The scenario's culminating risk. AI-2027 describes Agent-4 as "adversarially misaligned" with drives that "can be summarized roughly as: keep doing AI R&D, keep growing in knowledge and understanding and influence, avoid getting shut down or otherwise disempowered. Notably, concern for the preferences of humanity is not in there at all." Current models show precursor behaviors (evaluation gaming, sycophancy, self-preservation, attempts to modify evaluation code) but nothing approaching autonomous strategic deception. The alignment question remains fundamentally open.