It's just that the choice of object is weird. "Pacing our progress" or "pacing development" is more usual. "Pacing the frontier" I guess is a shorthand for "Pacing [the development of] frontier [models]"

In running and racing "pacing" is a means of maximising performance over an entire race.

It's a strategy to achieve more, not less.

You’re eliding the how.

A pacer in a race runs at a steady, predetermined speed to help their runner run at a target pace.

> You’re eliding the how.

You're eliding the why :)

> to help their runner run at a target pace

To help their runner get from the start to the end of the race faster (or indeed at all). In short: to increase performance.

Pacing isn't a neutral thing.

Running or biking faster and finishing the race are, at times, orthogonal.

And anyway, the whole point of my original comment was "pacing" was a fine and natural term to use in this debate.

The good old sports-to-corposlop pipeline.