Review of the "Risks from automated R&D" section in Anthropic's Risk Report (August 2026)

Summary

METR reviewed the "Risks from automated R&D" section of Anthropic's public August 2026 Risk Report as part of a high-access assessment. METR agrees that internally deployed models posed low risk of directly automating R&D or causing acute catastrophic risks by July 15th. However, METR says it is plausible Anthropic had crossed its early warning threshold, because that conclusion rests on contestable judgment calls the public report does not state clearly.

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