Comment by jrflo

3 months ago

I think harnesses would count, AI != LLMs. Any piece of code that helps the computer reason for itself is AI, the harnesses are AI in a sense.

By that interpretation, neither the harness nor the LLM is the AI. The computer (or system of computers) taken as a whole is the AI. You can't remove any piece and still have an intelligent system.

People are specifically talking about the engine itself and not the tools used.

We wouldn't call humans creating a calculator "recursive self improvement".

  • I wouldn't call the harness an AI, but I might call a tool that plays a major role in creating another one like it "recursive self improvement." For instance in the industrial revolution a metal lathe and a milling machine were instrumental in creating the next generation of themselves. Same thing with a robot that is fabricated by similar (i.e. older model of the same) robots. All of them lead to exponential improvement.