The Information Machine
Following·Day 3·first covered 26 Sep 2026·2 sources

Survey says full RSI unachieved; Zhipu runs agent-driven infra loop in production

The gist

The gap between what the survey defines as genuine RSI and what Zhipu reports deploying in production illustrates where current AI-assisted automation sits relative to the theoretical threshold. Zhipu engineers state that GLM-5.3 is moving toward replacing them and that human advantage in high-level design decisions is under pressure.

The full picture

A survey paper concludes that true recursive self-improvement (RSI), where a system improves the mechanism governing how it improves, has not yet been achieved, even as current systems automate parts of the improvement process. Separately, Chinese AI lab Zhipu reports that an Infra Agent powered by GLM-5.3 autonomously handled analysis, hypothesis generation, and code changes to bring GLM-5.3-Flash to production, tripling throughput in under two weeks, with engineers only defining objectives and system boundaries. The paper defines five levels of self-improvement, from executing human-designed improvements up to altering the improver, evaluator, or research policy itself; it finds evidence for lower levels broadly, while end-to-end Level 5 RSI remains confined to bounded prototypes.

How it developed
28 September 2026

Import AI reports Zhipu's Infra Agent autonomously optimized GLM-5.3-Flash to production, tripling throughput in under two weeks

26 September 2026

Survey paper concludes true RSI has not yet been achieved; defines five levels of self-improvement

Sources
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