AI is claimed to replicate 17 weeks of human engineering work

Ethan Mollick says the best AI could do four minutes of human work with a 50% chance of success when his first AI book appeared in 2024. He put the figure at 17 hours when he submitted the draft of “Co-Existence” earlier in 2026, and 17 weeks when it was published in October. He clarified that the last figure means replicating human engineering work, not taking 17 weeks to do it, and cited a study putting the token cost at something like $241.