Scott Alexander said he thought the AI 2027 scenario has the fictional company OpenBrain's net approval rating falling to about minus 40 to minus 50 sometime around this point in the scenario.
Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.
Prediction: Statements about events outside the person's control, checked once they fell due: did they come true?
What would count as true or false
Treat this as a factual claim about what the published AI 2027 scenario contains. True: the scenario text says OpenBrain's net approval rating falls to roughly −40 to −50 at the stage of the scenario under discussion. A figure within about 5 points of that range (−35 to −55) counts as true, given the speaker's hedge. Mostly true: the scenario gives a sharply negative net approval (for example −30) at about that stage, or gives a figure in the range at a nearby stage. Mostly false: the scenario describes OpenBrain as unpopular but gives no figure, or a figure well outside the range (for example −20 or −70). False: the scenario shows OpenBrain's approval as neutral or positive at that point.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (7)
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E1 About — AI 2027 AI Futures Project (ai-2027.com) · March 2026 Own record
“We say OpenBrain has -25% net approval in Apr 2025, but we now believe the net approval was more like +15%, so our estimates were too low.”
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E2 About — AI 2027 AI 2027 (AI Futures Project) · 19 January 2026 Own record
“Added Jan 2026: We say OpenBrain has -25% net approval in Apr 2025, but we now believe the net approval was more like +15%, so our estimates were too low.”
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E3 About — AI 2027 AI 2027 (AI Futures Project) · 19 January 2026 Own record
“We originally used a question from this poll which asked about people's approval of OpenAI, but before asking that question respondents were told negative things about OpenAI's safety behavior, so this isn't an accurate representation of people's unanchored views.”
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E4 About — AI 2027 AI 2027 (AI Futures Project) · 19 January 2026 Own record
“In the meantime, this less leading poll had OpenAI at +17% approval.”
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E5 AI 2027 - Rogue Replication Timeline Forecasting AI Futures (Substack) · 29 May 2025
“By April 2027, OpenBrain's net approval rating has fallen to -32% (compared to -28% in the AI 2027 scenario), and the percentage of the US population that considers AI to be the country's most pressing problem has risen to 8% (compared to 5% in the AI 2027 timeline).”
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E6 AI 2027 AI Futures Project (ai-2027.com) · 3 April 2025 Own record
“The White House is in a difficult position. They understand the national security implications of AI. But they also understand that it is deeply unpopular with the public.”
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E7 Thoughts on AI 2027 - Machine Intelligence Research Institute Machine Intelligence Research Institute · 9 April 2025
“I am confused by why the OpenBrain approval rating is so low, here. I expect labs and models to be succeeding at public relations harder.”
Reasoning
The evidence gives only a few of the scenario's OpenBrain net approval figures. The scenario's own About page puts it at −25% in April 2025 (E1, E2). An independent analysis says the AI 2027 timeline has it at −28% in April 2027 (E5). The scenario passage quoted describes AI as deeply unpopular but gives no figure (E6), and MIRI's comment that the rating is "so low" also states no number or date (E7). It is unclear which stage of the scenario the speaker meant, and apart from a secondhand report of a −28% figure for April 2027 in an independent commentary (E5), the evidence does not show the scenario's figures for its later stages. So it cannot be determined whether the scenario reaches about −40 to −50 at that point.
Cite this claim
Scott Alexander, “Scott Alexander said he thought the AI 2027 scenario has the fictional company OpenBrain's net approval rating falling to about minus 40 to minus 50 sometime around this point in the scenario.” (said 3 April 2025). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_5416568697f8, method 0.1.0+8bea457b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_5416568697f8
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
More prediction claims by Scott Alexander
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Mostly true
“We expect that as the AI labs become more capable, they tell the government about this because they want government contracts, they want government support.”
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Mostly true
“In our scenario, that starts with cyber warfare, the government sees that these AIs are now as capable as the best human hackers, but can be deployed at humongous scale.”
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Resolved true
“So they become extremely interested and they discuss nationalizing the AI companies.”
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Mostly true
“Our scenario focuses on coding in particular because we think coding is what starts the intelligence explosion.”
The authors of the scenario think coding is what will start the intelligence explosion.
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Mostly true
“I expect scaling to continue to produce gains, but this is less obvious than it’s been the past five years.”
Scaling AI models will continue to produce gains, though less obviously than in the past five years.
Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.