https://aifaultline.com/authors/karthik-tadepalli/New papers by Karthik Tadepalli in the AI Fault Line guide, and news naming them. https://aifaultline.com/research/p/title-821e84ce58d679cd/https://aifaultline.com/research/p/title-821e84ce58d679cd/Sat, 24 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000Using a task-automation model of AI research, the paper shows that a self-sustaining acceleration of AI progress with fixed compute and labor requires both AI capability and AI efficiency to improve fast enough, and neither can substitute for the other. Calibrated to recent progress, capability looks fast enough while efficiency is on a knife-edge; in Monte Carlo simulations such an acceleration occurs in 49% of draws, and uncertainty about efficiency progress drives most of the uncertainty.