The field of artificial intelligence was built on the premise that machines might someday improve themselves. In 1966, the English mathematician I. J. Good wrote that “an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an ‘intelligence explosion,’ and the intelligence of man would be left far behind.” AI researchers have long seen recursive self-improvement, or RSI, as something to both desire and fear. Today, advances in AI are raising the question of whether parts of that process are already underway. RSI means many things to many people. Some use the idea as a bogeyman to scare up regulation, while others brandish it in marketing.

For some, it means a fully autonomous loop, while for others it’s nearly any use of tech to build tech. Safest to say it’s a spectrum. At its strictest, researchers use the term to describe systems that can improve not just their outputs, but the process by which they improve—generating ideas, evaluating results, and modifying their own methods with zero human direction. By that standard, many of today’s systems fall short. They can help build better AI, but they still rely on humans to set goals, define…