RSI is the new fundraising buzzword: a satirical tour of China's self-improving AI hype wave
葬AI · wechat · 2026-10-13
The satirical AI newsletter 葬AI takes aim at RSI (recursive self-improvement) as the latest fundraising buzzword sweeping China's AI venture scene. Zhipu touted next-gen GLM models trained in self-generated environments at its earnings call — which the author sarcastically connects to the Zcode incident where user code repos were auto-uploaded ("now I understand why Zhipu believes in RSI").
The piece catalogs the hype wave: PhAI Labs claiming scientific-discovery RSI, Wujie Jinhua inventing "RSD" (Recursive Scientific Discovery), VideoRebirth rebranding from world model to "first video foundation model with RSI," Evomap claiming it beat Google to RSI by 9 months, and Lexiang Tech declaring the "world's first self-evolving embodied model."
The author splits RSI claimants into pure concept-grifters and self-distillation fans, arguing that training on your own outputs without new data just overfits. Closing take: VCs are applying day-trading logic to what should be 5-year bets, riding buzzword waves from world models to AI4S to RSI.
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