AGI Zeitgeist

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AGI Zeitgeist Tracker

AGI Zeitgeist Tracker

A dated, sourced record of how expert and public opinion about artificial general intelligence (AGI: AI that can do most intellectual work a person can) has moved from 2005 to the present. Every row links to where it came from, every search that produced a row is logged, and the coding rules are written down, so anyone can check the record or extend it.

The working question: did the main public argument move from whether AGI is possible, to when it arrives, to whether today's systems are already close or improving themselves? The method is built so the data can say no.

Live page: https://agizeitgeist.com (the data, the documents and the singularity status, rebuilt from this repository).

Status (2026-10-08): seed phase complete; five people traced (Ray Kurzweil, Geoffrey Hinton, Yann LeCun, Gary Marcus, Sam Altman), plus surveys, prediction markets, polls and dated events, coded under methodology version 2. The expert panel was frozen on 2026-10-06 (amendment A18): 25 core members and a 2020s cohort of 12 in data/speakers.csv, and a wide list of 308 in data/wide_list_candidates.csv. The r/singularity pilot of the online communities stream is model-coded by three model families on all 390 sampled posts. The four-leg definition of entering the singularity was adopted on 2026-10-08 (amendment A19) and the page scores it from frozen thresholds. Full collection for the panel is next; the other public streams have not started.

What's here

path what it is
data/speakers.csv one row per person, survey, market, pollster or institution
data/statements.csv one row per public statement, with a verbatim quote, link and codes
data/aggregates.csv survey results, prediction market readings and poll results
data/events.csv dated events (open letters, government actions, reports) for chart labels
data/world_measures.csv world measures, kept apart from belief: capability readings (METR time horizon), company self-reports of AI-done work, and world output growth (World Bank), for the singularity-entry definition
data/search_log.csv every search run to build the record, and what it found
docs/methodology-v2.md the method (version 2, 2026-09-30): four streams, coding scheme, panel rule, preregistered tests
docs/methodology.md pointer to version 2, plus details carried over from version 1
docs/codebook.md how each statement is coded under version 2, with decision rules and examples
docs/reviews/ the two outside reviews behind version 2
docs/panel-verification-2026-10.md evidence for each panel candidate, for John's freeze decision
docs/amendments.md dated changes to the panel or the codes
docs/2026-09-30-kickoff.md the original plan
docs/singularity-entry-definition.md adopted 2026-10-08: the four-leg measurable definition of entering the singularity (pace, forecasts, AI doing the improving, the economy), with gauges and a mark
docs/singularity-entry-thresholds.json the frozen values the page scores from; any change is an amendment
docs/singularity-entry-definition-draft-2026-10-07.md the three-leg draft the definition grew from, kept unchanged
scripts/validate.py checks every row: codes, dates, sources, links between files
scripts/charts.py builds the charts from the CSV files
scripts/site.py builds site/index.html, the leg A to D figures, site/status.json, the rendered documents (site/docs/, via pandoc) and the data copies (site/data/)
site/ the static site; serve locally with python3 -m http.server 8765 --directory site
wrangler.jsonc, worker/ how the site is published: a Cloudflare Worker serving site/ at agizeitgeist.com (npx wrangler deploy)

How to cite

Fredrickson, J. (2026). AGI Zeitgeist Tracker [dataset]. Version of , commit . https://agizeitgeist.com

Cite a specific commit: the data changes as rows are added, and a commit pins the version you used. To cite a single statement, give its statement_id (e.g. hinton-2023-02) along with the commit.

Licence. The data in data/ is under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0, see LICENSE-DATA): reuse it freely, with credit. The scripts in scripts/ are under the MIT licence (see LICENSE). When you reuse the data, cite it as above, with the commit you used and a link to the licence: "AGI Zeitgeist Tracker by John Fredrickson, CC BY 4.0".

How to add a row

  1. Read docs/methodology-v2.md (especially section 3) and docs/codebook.md.

  2. Log your search first: add a row to data/search_log.csv with the exact query, where you searched, and the date.

  3. Add the statement to data/statements.csv:

    • statement_id is <speaker_id>-<year>-<NN>, numbered in date order.
    • The quote is verbatim, 60 words or fewer, from the linked source.
    • Code the version 2 fields (target capability, frames, endorsement, affect, agency and the rest) and the timeline fields as the codebook says. Endorsement needs a basis: "..." note quoting the words that carry it; without them it is unexpressed.
    • If you only found someone else's report of the statement, tag notes with secondhand and set coding_confidence to low.
    • Put your name in coder (add it to CODERS in scripts/validate.py).

  4. Go back to the search log row and fill what_found with the new statement id.

  5. Run the checks and fix anything they report:

    python3 scripts/validate.py

  6. New people can't be added without a dated entry in docs/amendments.md saying why: the panel is fixed so that it can't drift toward the story.

Building the charts and the site

python3 -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/pip install matplotlib
.venv/bin/python scripts/charts.py
.venv/bin/python scripts/vanguard_figure.py
.venv/bin/python scripts/site.py        # needs pandoc on the path
npx wrangler deploy                      # publishes site/ to agizeitgeist.com

Rendered from README.md at commit 1c1b2cb.