Weng Li Returns to OpenAI for Recursive Self-Improvement as 1,100+ Researchers Urge AI R&D Speed Limits
APPSO · wechat · 2026-07-30
Former Thinking Machines Lab member Weng Li has returned to OpenAI to lead a team accelerating internal research into "recursive self-improvement," where AI participates in training and improving its own next-generation models. Meanwhile, Ilya's SSI secured massive investment and next-gen compute from Nvidia, with speculation that it is pursuing a new model evolution paradigm based on continuous learning.
However, over 1,100 practitioners, including top researchers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Ilya himself, recently co-signed a petition urging the industry to develop technical and coordination tools to control the pace of "automated AI R&D." This apparent contradiction highlights a consensus among top researchers: while automated research is key to the next AI leap, the industry must retain the ability to hit the brakes once this feedback loop truly kicks in.
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