Resolution requires an AI to originate a non-obvious architecture or training method that survives validation and ships in a frontier model, alongside clear public attribution. As of August 2026, labs are merging AI-written code, but genuine idea origination remains human 2 sources. We must weigh three outcomes: a fast takeoff where AI severely automates R&D, a steady continuation of current trends, and a bottleneck where AI remains a mere assistant. Under a rapid automation scenario, AI could originate novel techniques by June 2027, yielding shipped models by April 2028. However, under steady capability growth, an attribution claim is most plausible around June 2029, propelled by labs' strong marketing incentives to publish 'AI building AI' narratives technologyreview.com. A 15-20% chance of stalled capabilities or corporate secrecy (framing AI solely as an execution tool) pushes the right tail to October 2031 and deep into the 2030s, reaching June 2035. Expectations for R&D automation milestones here are highly correlated with other indicators of independent agent coding achievements . Compared to related forecasts, this stands as the earliest expected milestone because originating a single shipped change is a much lower bar than majority experiment selection .