OpenAI RSI blog data: 124x more tokens yield maybe 10% faster AI capability gains
sebkrier · x · 2026-09-13
Ramez strings together numbers from OpenAI's recent RSI blog post to illustrate diminishing returns: a 124x increase in token output led to only a 7x increase in lines of code, which led to a 1.6x increase in experiments run. Based on power-law extrapolation, he estimates this translates to perhaps just a 10% increase in the AI capability improvement rate.
The thread argues that massive compute and output gains shrink dramatically as they pass through each layer of the R&D pipeline. While the final figure is the author's own extrapolation, the underlying data comes from OpenAI's official post, giving the scaling-diminishing-returns debate a concrete quantitative anchor.
More from AGI Musings
- Walden Robotics CTO: general-purpose robot manipulation is having its 'GPT moment' — adnothing · 2026-10-30
- AI isn't eliminating developers, it's changing their roles, argues analyst — DavidLinthicum · 2026-10-30
- Goldman Sachs says AI will eliminate nearly 15 million jobs — saibharadwaj · 2026-10-30
- ChatGPT Is Turning Users Into Spammers, Says 404 Media Reporter — 404 Media · 2026-10-30
- Stripe spends 1% of OpEx on tokens — bull case for digital labor — zephyr_z9 · 2026-10-30
- Amazon blocks shopping agents, but these 11 retailers still welcome them — thisiskp_ · 2026-10-30