Presage
Scenarios/Gradual Diffusion/Two-Speed World
Mixed Active by 2030

Two-Speed World

Frontier capability is gated to vetted users; the public gets a lagging tier. Power concentrates in who holds the keys.

Probability this branch occurs by 2030
35–50%
35–50%
1 revision · 0/2 tripwires crossed

The scenario

The most capable models are never released to the public. Governments, defense contractors, large enterprises and vetted researchers operate one to two generations ahead of everyone else. Open-weight models trail by six to eighteen months. Capability inequality becomes a political issue: who is vetted, by whom, and what they do with the advantage.

Preconditions

  • Gated tiers persist across major labs for more than two years
  • Governments formalize vetting (export-control style) rather than dismantling it
  • The open-weight lag does not close

Leading indicators

  • Number of gated frontier tiers and size of vetted user base
  • Months between gated capability and open-weight parity (Metaculus expects <12 on cyber)
  • Government procurement of gated tiers

Tripwires

Observable thresholds. When one crosses, the scenario's status changes and the weekly re-run is brought forward.

clearts-t1
A government mandates vetting for access to a class of models
clearts-t2
Open-weight model matches a gated tier on its defining benchmark (would weaken this branch)

Playbook

Prevent
  • Push for transparent vetting criteria and appeal processes so gating does not become arbitrary privilege.
Detect
  • Ledger of gated tiers, criteria, and known holders.
Respond

individuals

  • Assume the tools you can access are not the best that exist; plan for that in security and competition
  • Seek vetted-access programs through employers, universities or research consortia

organizations

  • Get into vetted programs early; the lag compounds
  • Red-team your systems against the gated capability level, not the public one

governments

  • Set public, auditable vetting criteria
  • Ensure defenders (CERTs, hospitals, utilities) get gated access before attackers get open parity
Recover
  • If gating collapses into open parity overnight, apply the Open Cyber Parity playbook.

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.

Probability range over time
Your estimate

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.

43%
2026-09-16
35–50%
seed

Seed estimate, set to active: as of September 2026 all three leading labs ship a gated cyber/bio tier (Mythos, Astra internal tiers, Gemini Flash Cyber) beside a general model. The question is whether the gap stays at months or widens to years.

signals: sig-2026-09-01-fable-mythos, sig-2026-09-02-gemini-38

Signals pushing on this branch

2026-09-02
release
●●○○○

Google ships Gemini 3.8 Flash and a gated Flash Cyber tier

Gated cyber-capable tiers are now standard across three frontier labs. The cyber variant found a foundational cloud vulnerability in under two hours.

timelines ▲ faster concentration ▲ closed safety —
9to5Google · ledger
2026-09-01
release
●●●○○

Anthropic ships Claude Fable 5.1 (general) and Mythos 5.1 (gated)

A two-tier release: Fable generally available, Mythos limited to vetted cyber and bio users. Large jumps on agentic and scientific benchmarks.

timelines ▲ faster concentration ▲ closed safety ▲ safer
Anthropic · ledger

Built on

Every source reviewed for this scenario. The full ledger is public.

DateSourcePublisherType
2026-09-01Claude 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%.
Anthropicprimary
2026-09-02Gemini 3.8 Flash and Flash Cyber launch9to5Googlenews
2026-09-09Forecasts after the Hugging Face incident, OpenAI breach, and cyberattack questions
Open-weight matches Mythos cyber benchmark by Jul 2027: 95%. Another sandbox escape by Jan 2027: 50%. AI hacks third party: 41%. Weight exfiltration confirmed: 7%. Kill-switch bill passes both houses by Sept 2027: 24%.
Metaculusforecast