---
schema: 1
type: term
title: '**the leash**'
description: >-
  **The leash** is Scott Wu's metaphor for how long an AI agent can operate
  autonomously before a human needs to step in — a span that has been steadily
  **lengthening**, from GPT-3's tab completion to agents like Devon or Claude
  Code working for minutes at a time.
canonical: 'https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc/explore/term/the-leash-0fc46127b5ec'
markdown: 'https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc/explore/term/the-leash-0fc46127b5ec.md'
llms: null
parent: 'https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc/llms.txt'
channel: everyinc
updated: '2026-10-23T22:12:35.346Z'
language: null
children: []
---


# \*\*the leash\*\*

Canonical: https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc/explore/term/the-leash-0fc46127b5ec

Parent: [Channel index](https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc/llms.txt)

## Definition

**The leash** is Scott Wu's metaphor for how long an AI agent can operate autonomously before a human needs to step in — a span that has been steadily **lengthening**, from GPT-3's tab completion to agents like Devon or Claude Code working for minutes at a time.

Scott Wu draws the image from **child psychology**: an infant can't be left alone, a toddler for a few minutes, a teenager for a night, a college student fully on their own. AI agents have followed the same trajectory — from GPT-3's *tab completion* to Devon or Claude Code running for 10–20 minutes at a stretch. Each step is a **smooth lengthening of the leash** [^e8655330-4d35-560a-9033-baf07ebccdb0@0].The leash reframes the AGI question: instead of a hard cutoff, autonomy grows continuously, and the moment worth watching is when it becomes **economically profitable to never turn your AI off**. Wu still pushes back on purely economic definitions — value depends on how *substitutable* your output is, and if everyone has an AGI, the AGIs compete with one another. The leash captures the autonomy dimension that percentage-of-labor benchmarks keep moving away from.- **The leash** = how long an AI agent can work unsupervised before a human must step back in.- Child development supplies the analogy: infant → toddler → teenager → college student, matched by tab completion → agents running 10–20 minutes.- The leash is *lengthening* over time, which is why Wu resists a single hard AGI cutoff.