The Last AI Built by Humans: Toward Genuine Recursive Self-Improvement

Abstract:Recursive self-improvement (RSI) enables AI systems to turn experience and feedback into persistent changes that improve both their capabilities and the process of future improvement. We first use the Headroom-Closed Index (HCI) to reveal the problems of existing LLMs, then introduce the RSI concept and its development roadmap: from improvement-execution autonomy, improvement-strategy autonomy, experience-acquisition autonomy, and environment-adaptation autonomy, to recursive meta-improvement. Next we examine RSI across scenarios (e.g., scientific discovery, embodied intelligence, software engineering), highlighting their distinct requirements and development speeds. Drawing on diverse industry practices and preliminary empirical evidence, we connect RSI research with practical systems and identify key challenges to achieving genuine RSI.

Machine Learning (cs.LG); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Computation and Language (cs.CL)

arXiv:2609.11873 [cs.LG]

(or arXiv:2609.11873v1 [cs.LG] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.11873 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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