The Singularity Was Predicted for This Friday

The singularity was predicted for this Friday, November 13, 2026. Not by a prophet, but by a formula published in the journal Science in 1960. For decades the world ran right on its schedule. Then the line bent. Now a second line is shooting up, and this time it's artificial intelligence. ✨ ☕ If you want superintelligence to benefit everyone, you can support this channel here: https://buymeacoffee.com/thegoodtakeoff ✨ 🎬 Want to learn how these films are made? I'll share everything I know soon: https://aistronauts.at/film-course What bent the first line, and can it steer the second one? We follow the loop that drove it, the stopwatch researchers put on AI today, the birthday hidden in the date, and a one-line test from 1973 you can hold up to anything new. Every animation in this film was built from scratch for it, in code: no stock footage, no AI-generated images or video. The narration uses a synthetic voice. Clips marked ORIGINAL FOOTAGE are real recordings, credited below. Nothing in them is generated. Sources are listed below. Spotted an error? Tell us in the comments, corrections get pinned. CHAPTERS 0:00 The singularity was predicted for this Friday 0:41 What bent the first line 1:34 Why the loop broke 2:05 A stopwatch on AI 2:44 The shape with a date 3:24 Why this Friday 3:37 A projection, not a forecast 4:18 Seeing the road 5:08 Who gets more choices? 5:45 Billions at the wheel 6:30 The test from 1973 7:13 The next bend ORIGINAL FOOTAGE • Heinz von Foerster, cybernetician, interview 1989, High Tech Heroes #10 (atwaterpub): https://youtu.be/GWcyHbmsXS0 • David Rein, researcher at METR, "The AI Progress Chart Everyone Is Misreading" (Machine Learning Street Talk, May 2026): https://youtu.be/zSAGzfspuDE • Beren Millidge, CTO of Zyphra, "AI researchers debate how close we are to recursive self-improvement" (Dwarkesh Patel, Sep 2026): https://youtu.be/PrSf7IOYu-I SOURCES The 1960 paper and its schedule • von Foerster, Mora & Amiot (1960). Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D. 2026. Science 132: 1291–1295. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.132.3436.1291 • Umpleby (1987). World Population: Still Ahead of Schedule. Science 237: 1555–1556. • Science News (2026). Will the world end next month? Science said so, in 1960. https://www.science.org/content/article/will-world-end-next-month-science-said-so-1960 • MacEachern, The Conversation. Scientists predicted "Friday 13 November 2026" will be "doomsday." Should you be worried? https://theconversation.com/scientists-predicted-friday-13-november-2026-will-be-doomsday-should-you-be-worried-290354 • World population data: UN World Population Prospects 2024. https://population.un.org/wpp/ Why the first line bent • Our World in Data: Global population growth peaked six decades ago. https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/global-population-growth-peaked-six-decades-ago • Our World in Data: Global fertility has halved. https://ourworldindata.org/global-fertility-has-halved • Our World in Data: Mortality in the past – every second child died. https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past • UN World Population Prospects 2024, Key Messages. https://population.un.org/WPP/Publications/Files/WPP2024_Key-Messages.pdf The loop and the singularity • Kremer (1993). Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990. Quarterly Journal of Economics 108: 681–716. https://doi.org/10.2307/2118405 • Good (1965). Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine. Advances in Computers 6: 31–88. https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/items/5085379d-b24c-424e-8861-e70a47b4b2fb • Vinge (1993). The Coming Technological Singularity. https://edoras.sdsu.edu/~vinge/misc/singularity.html The stopwatch (METR time horizons) • METR (2025). Measuring AI Ability to Complete Long Tasks. https://metr.org/blog/2025-03-19-measuring-ai-ability-to-complete-long-tasks/ • METR (2026). Time Horizon 1.1. https://metr.substack.com/p/2026-1-29-time-horizon-1-1 • METR. Task-Completion Time Horizons of Frontier AI Models. https://metr.org/time-horizons/ • AI Futures Project. AI 2027 Timelines Forecast (the "superexponential" case). https://ai-2027.com/research/timelines-forecast • titotal. A deep critique of AI 2027's bad timeline models. https://titotal.substack.com/p/a-deep-critique-of-ai-2027s-bad-timeline Heinz von Foerster and his test • TU Wien Hall of Fame: Heinz von Foerster (born 13 November 1911, Vienna). https://www.tuwien.at/alle-news/news/hall-of-fame-heinz-von-foerster • von Foerster (1973). On Constructing a Reality. Reprinted in Understanding Understanding (Springer, 2003), pp. 211–227. https://doi.org/10.1007/b97451 • Pangaro. Invitation to Recursioning (on "choices", not "options"). https://www.pangaro.com/hvf/Pangaro-Invitation-to-Recursioning-Heinz-von-Foerster.pdf • On the birthday date: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/an-old-paper-really-did-suggest-a-mathematical-doomsday-on-13-november-2026-but-theres-no-need-to-worry-84777