TIME100 AI 2026 · Thinkers

Beth Barnes

Founder and CEO, METR

She left OpenAI to test AI from the outside; her group's chart shows AI's task length doubling every four to seven months.

Interesting facts

Turning point
Left OpenAI's alignment team in 2022 to build an outside group that tests AI models, which became the independent nonprofit METR.
time.com
Numbers
Her team found that the length of tasks AI can complete, measured in human time, has doubled every four to seven months since 2023.
time.com
Numbers
METR's 2025 study found that AI coding assistants actually slowed experienced engineers down.
time.com
First
Her team ran dangerous-capability tests on GPT-4 and Claude before release as a third-party evaluator.
alignmentforum.org
In their words
Told a podcast: "I am an expert telling you you should freak out."
80000hours.org