Recursive Self Improvement (RSI) is a concept where an AI can autonomously design and develop its own code, essentially creating a new improved version of itself, which in turn creates an even better version of itself and so on, and so on… (like the ‘70’s shampoo commercial for those that remember!)
Recursive Self Improvement is closer than you think. This is a concerning development to many because of the risk the AI reaches a point where humans no longer can control it. If its directive is to improve itself, any attempt to stop it may be taken as going against its prime directive. Therefore, it may need to take action to prevent humans from shutting it down. These actions are depicted in many old science fiction movies, the dystopian ones.
As I continue to work with AI, I am amazed at the progress it has made over the past few years. I’ve been using claude code for some projects, and it is now to the point where it not only writes the code, but then executes the code and previews the results, detects problems or errors in the code and proceeds to fix them, all with no interaction from me.
Here is a screenshot from claude code where it is building a rotatable, clickable, 3D globe of locations in my books, and connecting the locations with arcs.
Note how it previewed the globe (the image) and then proceeded to double check how it had configured the array of data. It found an error, corrected it, and rechecked the output. The end result of this coding project is on the locations page of my website. You can spin the globe around and see where the different books take you. Clicking on a location, in many cases, brings up a personal photo from that location. This was all written by Claude. I took a graduate class in computer graphics programming in the mid-80’s. Trust me when I tell you, it would have taken an enormous amount of work to create the capability that Claude created in short order.
What was particularly interesting is how it has moved beyond just writing the code, but now evaluating the output of the code it has written, and looping back to correct errors. Somewhat like self improvement.
My next book, a prequel to The Quantum Contingent and Quantum Time, has AI as an antagonist. RSI will be a key component. The interesting thing about the sequel is that it is no longer set in the near future like my other books. It is set in the recent past, and the issues it covers are some of the AI issues we struggle with today.
I hope you join me for this journey!
Until next time,
Greg
(You’ll note that in addition to Quantum Launch Locations, I also updated the technology page of the website with some of the technologies in Quantum Launch, like RSI.)
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