AI 2040: 1/5 of cognitive labor by 2031
In the AI 2040 Plan A scenario, one fifth of all cognitive labor is projected to be performed by AI by 2031.
Snapshot · The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
OpenAI Whistleblower FINALLY Speaks: “AI Has A 70% Chance Of Going Horribly Wrong!“
Explore episode
Jul 13, 2026
Where this was said
Is There a Safe Path to Accelerating AI?
At 1:22:56 · chapter starts 1:18:38
This is the most policy-dense section of the interview. Kokotajlo walks through the full AI 2040 Plan A scenario step by step. The premise: AI progress continues but just barely misses recursive self-improvement by 2030. In 2029, the US president negotiates an international agreement, sends inspectors to each country's data centres to verify they are running inference but not training new models, and temporarily halts development. New 'transparent data centres' are built, and when training resumes around 2030, it must be done with complete research transparency — architectures, training data, results — published openly. This 'open science' model is intended to solve both the alignment problem (more eyes on the problem) and the regulatory problem (governments can actually understand what companies are doing). The plan also requires active measures to prevent concentration of power — multiple companies across multiple countries, all at similar capability levels. Finally, new infrastructure must be designed to be reversible: if the agreement breaks down and racing restarts, newly-built data centres can be destroyed to prevent an even worse race. He acknowledges this kills competitive advantage for OpenAI and Anthropic but is good for humanity and for companies further behind the frontier.
Citizens dividend: $25K to $10M per person
In the AI 2040 Plan A scenario, a citizens' dividend starts at around $25,000 per person per year and grows to approximately $10 million per person per year as the AI-driven economy expands.
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