Abundance
AI delivers scientific and economic gains that are broadly shared; the good branch, if we steer to it.
The scenario
Models compress decades of science into years: new drugs, materials, energy. Productivity gains are large and, through some combination of policy, ownership and competition, reach most people. The branch requires both the technology and the politics to go right, which is why it is smaller than it deserves to be. We track it with the same rigour as the bad branches, because steering toward it is the point.
Preconditions
- Capability continues without a control failure
- Distribution mechanisms (competition, ownership, transfers) keep gains broad
- Energy and compute constraints are solved rather than fought over
Leading indicators
- Scientific output attributable to AI (trials, patents, materials)
- Median wage and labor-share trends
- Cost of energy and compute
Tripwires
Observable thresholds. When one crosses, the scenario's status changes and the weekly re-run is brought forward.
Playbook
- Not applicable.
- Track scientific and distributional indicators.
individuals
- Position to participate: ownership, equity, and skills that scale with better tools
organizations
- Pass gains to customers and staff; the firms that do will hold the political licence to keep operating
governments
- Design the distribution mechanism now (dividends, ownership, public compute); it cannot be retrofitted after the wealth concentrates
- Not applicable.
- Competition policy that keeps the frontier plural
- Public ownership stakes in AI infrastructure
- Energy abundance policy (permitting, grid, nuclear)
Probability history
Every change is logged with its reason and the signals that drove it. Moves are bounded per week; a jump beyond the bound is flagged as a shock.
Disagree with our range? Set yours. Estimates feed a community view that appears once enough people weigh in, and the weekly run reads the gap between our number and yours.
Seed estimate. Anthropic's optimistic 2030 case reaches +32% GDP; scientific benchmarks (Terminal-Bench-Science doubled in one release) show the capability is arriving. Low as a dominant trajectory because "broadly shared" is the hard part and nothing in current policy delivers it.
Built on
Every source reviewed for this scenario. The full ledger is public.
| Date | Source | Publisher | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-10 | Anthropic 2030 economy model: GDP and jobs scenarios Unemployment 4.6% to ~12% across scenarios; labor share 59% → 45%; young workers in AI-exposed jobs ~19% below peers. | Economic Insider | news |
| 2026-09-01 | Claude Fable 5.1 and Mythos 5.1 Mythos limited to vetted users; Terminal-Bench 4.0 55.8/60.9%; OSWorld 2.0 77.9%. | Anthropic | primary |
| 2026-02-13 | Dario Amodei on Dwarkesh Podcast 90% 'country of geniuses in a datacenter' by 2035; strong hunch 1–3 years. | Dwarkesh Podcast | statement |
Branches
Scientific Acceleration
AI agents run experiments and design molecules; discovery outpaces the institutions that approve and deploy it.
Broad Prosperity
Productivity gains reach median households through competition, ownership or transfers.