NYT: Startups Inherent, Recursive Superintelligence pursue AI recursive self-improvement
The New York Times reports on startups such as Inherent and Recursive Superintelligence that are developing tools to enable AI systems to achieve recursive self-improvement. The article features Jeff Clune, a computer scientist and co-founder of Recursive Superintelligence.
Coverage timeline
Techmeme
Cade Metz / New York Times : How AI startups like Inherent and Recursive Superintelligence are pursuing tools needed for AI systems to achieve recursive self-improvement — Jeff Clune, a computer scientist and co-founder of Recursive Superintelligence, one of the start-ups chasing “recursive self-improvement.”

Related stories
Ex-DeepMind Scientist David Silver Discusses RL-Based 'Super Learner' Startup
In a Financial Times interview, former DeepMind scientist David Silver discussed his startup Ineffable, which is developing an AI 'super learner' using reinforcement learning as an alternative path to large language models. Silver, known for architecting AlphaGo, also expressed a moral obligation to advance the technology.
1 reports · 1 sources
Meta FAIR veteran Yuandong Tian: My research work could be automated within five years
In a podcast interview, Yuandong Tian, a veteran of Meta FAIR and co-founder of Recursive Superintelligence, said he realized his research work could be replaced within five years after completing a project with results from an internal OpenAI model. He co-founded the startup in May with a $6.5 billion valuation and over $650 million in funding, choosing to proactively build a company toward that direction rather than passively lose his job.
1 reports · 1 sources

Recursive Self-Improvement Moves from Theory to Practice in 2026
In 2026, major AI labs disclosed concrete steps toward recursive self-improvement (RSI), a concept from I.J. Good's 1965 paper. OpenAI announced an automated research intern in September, Anthropic reported Claude leading 26% of its R&D, and Zhipu deployed an AI system that improves itself in production. These developments mark RSI's transition from philosophical speculation to measurable corporate KPIs.
1 reports · 1 sources

Hinton co-authors first paper on recursive self-improvement and intelligence explosion
Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio, Andrew Barto, Jakub Pachocki, and 18 other researchers co-authored a paper titled "What if automating AI R&D triggers an intelligence explosion?" The paper examines whether automating AI research and development could close the loop of recursive self-improvement, potentially compressing years of AI progress into months or even about five weeks. It argues that an intelligence explosion might not require superintelligence first, but could start if the automation efficiency of AI R&D is high enough.
1 reports · 1 sources

News updates every hour. Subscribe in your RSS reader to get new stories automatically.
Subscribe