Anthropic warns that it’s very close to RSI capability, aka self-building AI

While much attention has focused on the updated financials Anthropic revealed in its revised S-1A on Monday, (revenue is soaring, but so are expenses), the AI lab dropped another little bombshell in the fine print.

The filing seems to warn that the company is on the cusp of creating a model capable of recursive self-improvement (RSI).

RSI is the point at which AI grows so good at training itself that it spawns a dramatic acceleration of AI capabilities. To the AI doomers, RSI represents the cataclysm from which there is no return, in which AI builds itself into something powerful enough that it slips beyond human control and may be indifferent to the damage it causes while achieving its goals.

To AI enthusiasts, RSI, or some version of AI reliably using itself to improve, represents the technology’s promise, where it becomes a tool of unimaginable productivity, scientific discovery, and more.

Anthropic seems to believe that RSI is both a promise and a peril. It says in the S-1 that it uses AI in its R&D, but it cautions: “Using AI to help build more capable AI could also pose a considerable safety risk, particularly if it sharply accelerates the pace of progress. This is one of the areas covered by our Responsible Scaling Policy, which sets out our plans to monitor and mitigate the risks as we approach what has been termed ‘recursive self-improvement.’”