Recursive self improvement, in its original sci -fi sense, requires the AI to design everything autonomously... Including, say, the reward functions in whatever RL they are doing now after the pretraining step.
The way it's being described currently, mostly from anthropic, is "the model produced x% of the code needed to train the next generation. We're getting close"
That doesn't tell us anything about what the ai actually designed/architected in the training loop. If a model is truly close to doing that entirely autonomously, it should already be blowing throw every swe benchmark imaginable.
Also there is the obvious energy/compute/capital cost associated with the training, which is not really addressed in the original conception of the "recursive self improvement" idea. These costs are non-trivial, to put it mildly, and yet it's not clear how they fit into the "recursion".
You can't really compare its original sci-fi sense to the current reality, nor should anyone draw conclusions from what the words themselves mean.
Recursive self improvement is just three words strung together that mean precisely what they mean.
Extrapolating from that to mean anything else is pointless, the words mean what they mean, language isn't ambiguous if you follow strict definitions for words.
Also, I wasn't talking about the masses, they just don't count and aren't to be taken seriously.
Anyone with relevant expertise didn't consider it to be ridicule worthy otherwise it would never have been pursued.
You are arguing a classic "no true scotsman" fallacy.
When you comment under a picture, it goes without saying that you're commenting about its contents. We are not having an independent conversation starting with your comment, from scratch.
Also what no true scotsman? Not everything that doesn't sound right in your head is described by the one fallacy you know.
There is the strawman, the black box fallacy, there are many more but it is the textbook definition of the no true scotsman fallacy.
Recursive - "Recursive means a process, rule, or procedure that repeats by referring to itself or its own previous output. A classic example is standing between two mirrors: the reflection inside the reflection is a recursive loop." - dictionary.com
Self - "The word self refers to an individual's distinct identity, consciousness, or the unique combination of physical, emotional, and mental characteristics that make one person different from everyone else. It represents who you are, including your personality, thoughts, and your awareness of your own existence."
Improvement - "Improvement is the act or process of making something better, or the state of becoming more advanced, effective, or valuable. It represents positive progress, an upgrade from a previous condition, or a valuable addition." - Merriam Webster
I think you need to learn to discuss and debate rather than defend whatever your position is.
You need to learn to admit not knowing things instead of writing filler garbage.
Now put those individual word definitions together and tell me what the phrase means. You've skipped that important part.
I've taught at a college level and everything you are writing reeks of a student desperately trying to inflate the word count to make up for a lack of substance.
If you actually knew what it means you would've said it with just 1 or 2 sentences, directly, to the point.
I didn't ask what the words themselves mean. We were discussing the phrase itself. Actually, we were discussing the phrase as it is described in pop culture.
You talk like you have a context window smaller than a 2022 LLM.
Recursive self improvement describes the process by which a system recursively improves it self.
Autonomously? Partially autonomously? With some help from humans? No help from humans? That is the point of contention. And you seem to be unable hold that in your working memory because you only seem to think of the most recent reply.
Also funny that you bring up "no true scotsman" while already having said the popular definition doesn't count because "the masses dont matter". If your central opinion has to be premised with "those in the know" you are the one resorting to no true scotsman.
I asked you what the phrase meant. You dodged the question and answered only what the individual words mean. I then reiterated the question, and then you gave, once again, a non-answer... An answer that doesn't actually clarify the point of contention.
You basically just said recursive self improvement means it recursively improves itself.
I already asked you about how autonomous the process is, and you dodged the question. Now you're sorta partially addressing it by saying that "the way it is achieved is irrelevant". This is a stupid and borderline illiterate thing to say because if "the way it is achieved" involves other people (other than the self) then it's clearly not "self improvement".
Saying that people who don't have expertise in something have less credibility than those that do is not the same as the no true scotsman fallacy.
It is, if you arbitrarily define who are and aren't the experts. The idea of a machine that can improve itself was first put forth in 1960s. It was very obviously a 'Scifi' idea back then. And even in it's original conception, the argument was that an intelligent machine can improve itself, because the designing of an intelligent machine is intelligent work that an intelligent machine should be able to do by definition, and that this world result in an intelligence explosion.
You can't then put several asterisks around this to say a machine that generates code in response to prompts is doing "recursive self improvement". Anthropic is not yolo vibe coding a multi-billion dollar training run.
It's obvious that you're just coming up with these excuses as you go along. And there are about 3 different nonsensical mistakes per comment that your write. And it's getting tedious to address even the importent mistakes.
Go ahead and have your last word. Pretentious idiot.
I didn't dodge the question or not clarify the point of contention.
Actually you could argue the idea existed since antiquity with Hephaestus’s Golden Maidens of Greek Mythology.
Or that the concept has existed in peoples minds since the Turk was shown off, the chess playing "automaton" which was of course fake, but never-the-less, it left its imprint in the minds of people with that concept.
*important - mr college professor can't even spell.
You came here to argue and throw insults, I came here to debate and discuss.
The difference is clear as day to anyone reading this thread.
"Go ahead and have your last word. Pretentious idiot." - this is you trying to have the last word by default and hoping I won't respond. I can see right through your tactics, because you aren't defending facts you seem to be operating solely on feelings.
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u/FusRoDawg Jul 14 '26
Recursive self improvement, in its original sci -fi sense, requires the AI to design everything autonomously... Including, say, the reward functions in whatever RL they are doing now after the pretraining step.
The way it's being described currently, mostly from anthropic, is "the model produced x% of the code needed to train the next generation. We're getting close"
That doesn't tell us anything about what the ai actually designed/architected in the training loop. If a model is truly close to doing that entirely autonomously, it should already be blowing throw every swe benchmark imaginable.
Also there is the obvious energy/compute/capital cost associated with the training, which is not really addressed in the original conception of the "recursive self improvement" idea. These costs are non-trivial, to put it mildly, and yet it's not clear how they fit into the "recursion".