Schmidhuber claims first concrete RSI algorithm dates to his 1987 thesis
SchmidhuberAI · x · 2026-09-17
Reacting to today's Recursive Self-Improvement hype, Jürgen Schmidhuber argues I. J. Good's 1966 "intelligence explosion" idea lacked concrete algorithms. His 1987 diploma thesis applied genetic programming to itself — with meta, meta-meta and deeper levels — which he calls Meta Evolution, the first concrete RSI algorithm. He claims dozens of RSI papers since 1987 (self-modifying policies from 1994, gradient descent variants, etc.), summarized in new technical note IDSIA-9-26, and argues cheap compute now makes RSI central to software and physical AI.
Related event: Schmidhuber Claims Priority: First Concrete RSI Algorithm Dates to 1987(10 posts)→
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