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When AI Builds Itself: Our progress toward recursive self-improvement

anthropic.com

261–270 of 738 posts

Re: When AI Builds Itself: Our progress toward recursive self-improvement

#261

Do code harnesses that build themselves count as recursive self improvement, or does it need to be the AI itself to qualify for the term? I always was fascinated (obsessed?) by robots that build robots, or even things like this that can contribute a lot to making the next version of itself: https://buildyourcnc.com/products/cnc-machine-blacktoe-v4-2x... (cnc router that cuts plywood, and is made out of cnc-router cut…

You need the AI eventually building another AI for the name to apply. This page is just bullshit. They vibe-code their harnesses, and yes, it shows.

Anyway, what does recursive self-improvement even means for neural-network based AIs? It's not clear it's possible at all.

Re: When AI Builds Itself: Our progress toward recursive self-improvement

#262
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what point you're making. I'm responding to the article they wrote and published. If I worked there I would be embarrassed to have it publicised that I have been comitting 8 times as much code as I used to without even attempting to justify it.

The point I am making is the article you are responding to is marketing hype and that they are lying. Their engineers, I am fairly sure, are doing engineering. At least to the point Anthropic's interview process is trying to filter for people with engineering skills, not "how do you best leverage AI to make more AI" skills like this seems to imply.

You seem to have taken offense on behalf of the people working there. But I'm not attacking them nor seriously questioning their abilties/qualifications/performance. The slight reference I made to such was in an exclusive rhetorical device -- the situation presented cannot be, unless something unbelievable is occurring.

It's the organisation, its culture, the greater culture surrounding it, and the marketing that I have a problem with.

> they are lying

Yes, it's incredible.

Re: When AI Builds Itself: Our progress toward recursive self-improvement

#263
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their whole argument is that AI's added efficiency means they don't need to set aside valuable human time anymore. Why can't they just point Claude at Claude Code and ask it to reduce memory usage by 90%?

You can do that. But I'm telling you, in tech (and enterprise shops I've worked at too) they don't care. I'm using the internal Google tools and it's helping me write code much faster too, but it still takes time. I could make the CLI tool I work on faster, but no one cares except the end users, and their minor concerns have no impact on our internal politics. At the end of the day you have to do what you're paid to…

In other words, performance is almost always an afterthought.

Re: When AI Builds Itself: Our progress toward recursive self-improvement

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe that gigabyte is occupied by useful information: traces/memory?

Nope. Used to render on the terminal like a game engine. https://x.com/trq212/status/2014051501786931427

Do game engines constantly have buffer issues?

Re: When AI Builds Itself: Our progress toward recursive self-improvement

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware we're not there yet, but think of something like https://chatjimmy.ai/ ; at some point, you're going to be able to dynamically build the harness so it creates the necessary consistency & dynamicism at a speed unheard of. But yes, I'm aware no ones got anywhere near there, mostly because most of the focus is on exploding the context and parameters. I'm saying that phase is done.

I'm not sure what I am looking at with chatjimmy.... what is special about it? Speed? I'm also not sure what you mean by "we aren't there yet." Where? Sorry, not trying to be difficult or dense, I'm just not sure what you are referring to. > mostly because most of the focus is on exploding the context and parameters. Large context allows a surprising amount of "learning" to happen at inference time rather than traini…

image a streamlined model whose only job is to build then execute the harness at the speed youre seeing in chat jimmy.

Re: When AI Builds Itself: Our progress toward recursive self-improvement

#266

I find any and all claims like this ridiculous from a company who can't build a terminal application that uses less than a gigabyte of RAM.

Maybe that gigabyte is occupied by useful information: traces/memory?

A gigabyte is a lot of memory. Even the largest context windows are a small fraction of that with any sane engineering discipline.

Re: When AI Builds Itself: Our progress toward recursive self-improvement

#267

I fail to see how pursuing recursive self-improvement at full speed is compatible with Anthropic's stated goal of AI Safety. If nukes were not invented yet, would it really be a good idea to build and sell them as fast as possible (in peace time, no less)? I am not cynical enough to believe that Anthropic's warnings are pure marketing hype. Let's hope that it is instead overconfidence or the result of too much time t…

Sorry for nitpicking, but: > If nukes were not invented yet, would it really be a good idea to build and sell them as fast as possible (in peace time, no less)? Arguably, yes.

With the US showing that it will elect mentally disabled people such as Trump, this doesn't seem such a wise decision.

Re: When AI Builds Itself: Our progress toward recursive self-improvement

#269
post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Used to render on the terminal like a game engine. https://x.com/trq212/status/2014051501786931427

Do game engines constantly have buffer issues?

Depends on if they're written with Claude

Re: When AI Builds Itself: Our progress toward recursive self-improvement

#270

I find any and all claims like this ridiculous from a company who can't build a terminal application that uses less than a gigabyte of RAM.

I have iterm2 open right now with Claude in a long session and it's only using 500MB of memory.

Only 500MB!

you are confirming their point even as you contradict the specifics

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