75-Page Paper Ranks AI Self-Improvement in 5 Levels, 75% of Research Stuck at Level 1-2
FinanceYF5 · x · 2026-09-16
A 75-page paper by 30+ researchers introduces a 5-level framework for recursive self-improvement (RSI): Level 1 has humans deciding what to improve, while Level 5 means AI rewrites the process of creating the next-generation AI. Reviewing 491 papers, they find 75% remain at Levels 1–2 and fewer than 6% reach Level 5, concluding that AI's achievements so far are a drop in the ocean.
More from AGI Musings
- vikhyat predicts alternating compute oversupply and undersupply on the road to AGI — TheZachMueller · 2026-11-02
- Sam Altman: AI has surpassed top scientists, and 2026 will be a turning point year — kimmonismus · 2026-11-02
- DeepSeek design doc: a person can only follow 3-5 agent sessions at once, attention is the real bottleneck — heyshrutimishra · 2026-11-02
- AI researcher: we have no reliable way to tell whether an AI system is conscious — dioscuri · 2026-11-02
- Toby Ord: track both what models can and can't do to see real capability gaps — tobyordoxford · 2026-11-02
- Forward Deployed Verifier will soon be as valuable as FDE, argues poster — vaibhavbetter · 2026-11-02