LHO

The Ledger · 172 entries · Last reviewed 2026-08-20

The Ledger

A register of human capacities and their status against the best machines. Each line carries a date and its sources.

How statuses are assigned

Held means no machine performs the act, because the act belongs to a person by its nature, as with bearing responsibility or giving consent. Contested means machines match humans in narrow or disputed settings and the question is still open. Ceded means one of two things, and each line says which: either the best machine result exceeds the best human result on the task as defined, or the task is no longer performed by humans at scale. Every line carries a date and a source. Once a line is ceded it stays so. The ledger records, it does not rank.

38 Held by humans 61 Contested 73 Ceded to machines

172 entries
Chess at world-champion levelCeded1997
Open-domain quiz answering on Jeopardy!Ceded2011
Image classification on ImageNetCeded2015
Atari 2600 games from raw pixelsCeded2015
Go at top professional levelCeded2016
No-limit Texas hold'em pokerCeded2017
StarCraft II at Grandmaster levelCeded2019
Protein structure prediction from sequenceCeded2020
Conversational speech transcriptionCeded2016
Passing professional licensing examsCeded2023
Olympiad mathematics (IMO)Ceded2025
Competitive programming (ICPC World Finals)Ceded2025
Medium-range global weather forecastingCeded2023
Negotiation in the game of DiplomacyContested2022
Diagnostic reasoning on clinical casesContested2024
Legal reasoning and researchContested2023
Generating scientific hypothesesContested2025
Poetry and literary proseContested2024
Visual art in juried competitionContested2022
Persuasion in debateContested2025
Autonomous completion of long tasksContested2025
Software engineering on real repositoriesContested2025
TranslationContested2018
Bearing responsibilityHeld·
Giving consentHeld·
Bearing witnessHeld·
Choosing endsHeld·
Promising and forgivingHeld·
Moral judgment in unprecedented situationsHeld·
Taste as a commitmentHeld·
Embodied careHeld·
Holding officeHeld·
Cutting and threshing grain by handCeded1938
Ploughing and hauling with draught animalsCeded1954
Picking cotton by handCeded1949
Milking a dairy herd without anyone presentCeded1992
Hewing coal with a pickCeded1954
Blowing glass bottles by mouthCeded1903
Minding a running loomCeded1924
Spot welding car bodies on the lineCeded1969
Spray painting a manufactured body by handCeded1969
Walking the aisles to gather an orderCeded2012
Loading a ship's cargo piece by pieceCeded1956
Cutting and hauling natural iceCeded1914
Moving earth with pick, shovel and barrowCeded1961
Picking wine grapes by handContested1963
Weeding a field by handContested2022
Picking soft fruit from the treeContested2025
Threshing grain with a flailCeded1786
Reaping grain with a sickle and a scytheCeded1831
Spinning yarn by handCeded1779
Weaving on a handloomCeded1785
Connecting a telephone call by handCeded1983
Sorting the mail by handCeded1965
Computing by hand as a paid occupationCeded1962
Taking dictation in shorthandCeded1964
A company's routine calculations by handCeded1951
Keeping and recalculating a ledger by handCeded1979
Posting cheques to accounts by handCeded1959
Drawing cash from a person at a counterCeded1967
Running a lift for passengersCeded1950
Punching a passenger's ticket at the gateCeded1973
Sending and reading Morse by earCeded1999
Setting a page of type in hot metalCeded1978
Trading by open outcry in a pitCeded2015
Writing a routine earnings storyCeded2014
Ringing up a basket of shoppingContested2023
Taking the minutes of a meetingContested2023
The commissioned painted likenessCeded1839
Commercial illustration and the stock libraryContested2023
Concept art and storyboards for productionContested2024
Rotoscoping a moving subject frame by frameContested2020
The matte shot painted on glassCeded1990
Making an actor decades younger on screenCeded2019
Speaking an actor's lines in that actor's voiceContested2022
Inking and painting animation cels by handCeded1990
Putting colour on a monochrome photograph or filmCeded2016
Logging the rushes and building the first assemblyContested2023
Writing production and library music to briefContested2024
Mastering a finished mix for releaseContested2014
Modelling clothes for a campaignContested2024
Writing a screenplay for productionContested2023
Transcribing and timing subtitlesCeded2017
Cutting the trailer for a filmContested2016
A film assembled from generated shotsContested2025
Reading a book aloud for publicationContested2023
Reading a retinal photograph for diabetic retinopathyContested2018
Reading a screening mammogramContested2023
Telling a melanoma from a mole on a photographContested2017
Finding a metastasis in a lymph node slideContested2017
Grading a prostate biopsy on the Gleason scaleContested2022
Reading a chest radiograph for tuberculosisContested2021
The first reading of an electrocardiogramCeded1978
Counting a white cell differential under the microscopeCeded1974
Screening a cervical smear at the microscopeContested1998
Deciding whether to shock a stopped heartCeded1979
Adjusting the insulin dose between mealsCeded2016
Giving the sedation for a routine endoscopyContested2013
Suturing living soft tissue with no hand on the instrumentContested2016
Holding the probe to acquire a cardiac ultrasoundContested2020
Noticing that a patient on the ward is going downhillContested2021
Writing the note of a consultationContested2024
Conducting a talking therapyContested2025
Judging whether a newborn can hearCeded1993
First-pass document review in litigationCeded2012
Reviewing a standard contract for riskContested2018
Drafting routine legal documentsContested2023
Buying advertising space by negotiationCeded2009
Defining the audience for a campaignCeded2013
Writing marketing copy and brand contentContested2023
Producing content to be found by search enginesContested2024
Building a website for a small businessContested2016
Producing interface mockups and prototypesContested2025
Setting the price of a perishable seatCeded1992
Rating a credit application by scorecardCeded1958
Spotting a fraudulent paymentCeded1992
Allocating and rebalancing a small portfolioContested2010
Answering the first customer service enquiryContested2024
Sifting job applications before an interviewContested2018
Driving a taxi in city trafficCeded2020
Driving a metro trainCeded1998
Landing an airliner in fogCeded1965
Fixing a ship's position by the starsCeded1995
Manoeuvring in close air combatContested2023
Searching a fingerprint against a national collectionCeded1999
Identifying a face from a photographContested2018
Reading speech from the movement of the lipsCeded2018
Proving a theorem by checking every caseCeded1976
Verifying that a mathematical proof is correctContested2014
Designing a candidate drug moleculeContested2025
Proposing and making a new inorganic materialContested2023
Finding and classifying a supernovaCeded2023
Classifying a galaxy by its shapeCeded2015
Picking the arrival of a seismic wave on a recordCeded2018
Annotating the genes in a newly sequenced genomeCeded2016
Driving a heavy truck on the motorwayContested2025
Casting a voteHeld·
Sitting on a juryHeld·
Bearing punishmentHeld·
Being the author of a workHeld·
Being named as an inventorHeld·
Owning propertyHeld·
Holding citizenshipHeld·
Standing surety for someoneHeld·
The decision to use lethal forceHeld·
Refusing an unlawful orderHeld·
GrievingHeld·
Being someone's friendHeld·
Raising a childHeld·
Risking oneself for anotherHeld·
Trusting someoneHeld·
Withdrawing one's labourHeld·
Making and serving a coffee to orderContested2017
Tasting a sample and naming what is in itContested2023
Making a willHeld·
Standing for electionHeld·
Appearing as counselHeld·
Prescribing a medicineHeld·
Carrying a pregnancyHeld·
Donating blood or an organHeld·
Building airline crew rostersCeded1991
Reviewing a scientific paperContested2025
Contracting a marriageHeld·
Taking an oathHeld·
Blowing the whistleHeld·
Claiming asylumHeld·
Keeping a professional secretHeld·
Being a research subjectHeld·
Taking religious vowsHeld·
Playing a table tennis match against an expertContested2026
Finding an exploitable flaw in softwareContested2026
Forecasting an uncertain eventContested2026