Nathan Lambert's alternative to recursive self-improvement, 'lossy self-improvement,' argues automatable research is too narrow for runaway acceleration: scaling laws keep exponential costs, parallel-AI agentAn AI system that doesn't just answer once but works toward a goal in a loop — taking actions, reading the results, and deciding what to do next.Full definition → returns diminish, and resource/political bottlenecks resist automation.
John Schulman, Beren Millidge, and Charlie O'Neill gave different timelines for a 10x AI-researcher productivity boost: about 2 years (Schulman; Millidge calls it plausible) versus 5-10 years (O'Neill), bottlenecked on deciding which experiment to run next.
OpenAI's John Schulman argues post-training can't be fully automated because someone still has to decide how the model should behave in each specific area — and mistakes there are 'really easy' to make in ways that never show up in benchmarks.
Anthropic's Claude Fable 5.1 & Mythos 5.1 system card states that internal AI usage has been key to maintaining the labs' current pace of progress, but the company does not yet see 'clear signs of dramatic acceleration' beyond that existing rate.
Lambert's read of where labs' automation gains are actually showing up so far is narrow and routine — software engineering, log monitoring, and managing planned experiments — not the jump in peak intelligence that 'recursive self-improvement' implies.
Terms in this piece · Glossary
context window — The maximum amount of text a model can consider at once — its working memory for the current conversation or task.
AI agent — An AI system that doesn't just answer once but works toward a goal in a loop — taking actions, reading the results, and deciding what to do next.
Why it matters
Offers a contrarian, insider-adjacent read on how lab culture shapes public RSI and AI-risk narratives, useful context windowThe maximum amount of text a model can consider at once — its working memory for the current conversation or task.Full definition → for weighing safety alarm bells coming out of frontier labs.
