AI Glossary

Recursive self-improvement

Also called RSI

A hypothetical process in which an AI system improves its own design, and each improved version is better at making the next improvement. The idea goes back to the statistician Irving John Good, who called the result an intelligence explosion.

See also

  • Superintelligence

    An intellect that would far exceed the best human minds in practically every field.

  • Artificial general intelligence

    AI that could match people across most kinds of intellectual work, rather than excelling at one task.

  • Flywheel

    A set of connected parts of a business that feed one another, so each turn builds on the work done in earlier turns and the effort compounds into momentum.

Source: I. J. Good, Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine, Advances in Computers, volume 6 (opens in a new tab)

Cite this term.

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This term

Orbyt Labs, Recursive self-improvement (AI Glossary), Oct 18, 2026. https://www.orbytlabs.ai/orbyt-collective/glossary/recursive-self-improvement

The dataset (JSON)

Orbyt Labs Glossaries (Oct 19, 2026), https://www.orbytlabs.ai/glossary#dataset

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