““scaling laws aren’t universal laws like gravity but rather mere observations that might not hold forever, much like Moore’s law, a trend in computer chip production that held for decades but arguably began to slow a decade ago.” Still true, and recently publicly acknowledged by Altman, who noted that we wouldn’t really know what GPT-5 could do till we got there..”
Our reading:
Scaling laws are observations that might not hold forever, not universal laws, and Altman has recently acknowledged as much.
Assessment: Can’t be checked
What happened
Not graded on evidence
Outcome: Can’t be checked
An opinion, a recommendation, or too vague to test. Listed, not scored.
Evidence up to . Checked .
Why
The main statement expresses a possibility without a deadline. A finite record cannot settle it as written. The scaling paper calls its relationships empirical, and the located Altman quotation confirms uncertainty about GPT-5's capabilities. Neither licenses turning the possibility into a firm prediction or treating capability uncertainty as agreement that scaling laws will fail. The narrower attribution is corroborated, but the combined claim should not receive a supported or contradicted verdict.
Caveats
- Altman's words were obtained through published interview reporting, not an interview recording.
- This disposition does not imply that the empirical characterization of scaling research is false.
Evidence (2 items)
Claims like this aren’t scored, so there is no evidence to show.
How we judged it
- Kind of claim
- Observation
- Deadline
- None given. We don’t add one.
Where we had to interpret
- Preserve might not hold forever as a possibility-qualified statement. Do not convert it into a prediction of failure or a claim merely about the absence of guarantees.
- The attribution is a separate factual component. Evidence of uncertainty about GPT-5's capabilities does not automatically establish agreement about the eventual validity of scaling laws.
- The combined claim cannot receive a single factual verdict without changing its hedged component or overstating what the attribution establishes.
We don’t grade claims like this. We only check the quote and who said it.
What would settle it
A separate claim about the exact Altman attribution could be assessed against the complete referenced remarks. The possibility statement would require a stated test or deadline before it could be scored.
We found 17 claims in this post. See them all.
Full record
Source and dates
Marcus on AI, Two years later, deep learning is still faced with the same fundamental challenges, paragraph 22.
- Said
- We read the source
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence up to
- Checked
We read this wording on 2026-10-29. The post may have been edited after 2024-03-10.
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the posts we read.
: Marcus on AI, Two years later, deep learning is still faced with the same fundamental challenges
“scaling laws aren’t universal laws like gravity but rather mere observations that might not hold forever, much like Moore’s law, a trend in computer chip production that held for decades but arguably began to slow a decade ago.” Still true, and recently publicly acknowledged by Altman, who noted that we wouldn’t really know what GPT-5 could do till we got there..
- Where
- paragraph 22
- Published
- 2024-03-10
- We read it
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Versions
- Current: Can’t be checked. Evidence up to 2026-10-28.
What happened to this record
PublishedBy us
Published after both AI reviews and the final check passed.
Held backBy us
A reviewer said our test wasn’t fair to what was actually said.