arXiv — Machine Learning · · 4 min read

MetaRSI / RSI2: A Meta-Recursive Self-Improving System for Recursive Self-Improving Systems Themselves

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Computer Science > Machine Learning

arXiv:2609.06396 (cs)
[Submitted on 6 Sep 2026 (v1), last revised 9 Sep 2026 (this version, v2)]

Title:MetaRSI / RSI2: A Meta-Recursive Self-Improving System for Recursive Self-Improving Systems Themselves

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Abstract:Recursive self-improvement (RSI) lets a system improve the model-building machinery from its own failures, so every later model inherits the gain. Yet RSI has been validated almost exclusively on coding and formal benchmarks such as science QA and mathematics. This format bound limits RSI to improvement within a machine-checkable slice, not general capability where questions are open and correctness is settled by argument, replication, or measurement. We argue RSI must next operate across real, diverse scientific, engineering, and meta-scientific domains, not where formal evaluation is merely tractable. To that end we present MetaRSI-v1, where improvement is the scheduled composition of three typed operators over one unified paradigm. Data-RSI amplifies existing competence and marks its boundary; Harness-RSI edits a five-slot scaffold without touching weights; Model-RSI internalizes capability into parameters through bounded training. Sharing one loop kernel and artifact vocabulary, they make data, scaffold, and model changes composable rather than exclusive. A two-axis optimizer jointly decides operator order and each operator's proposal policy, while a meta-level policy revises the schedule across terms. We validate MetaRSI-v1 under the field's standard evaluations, on code and closed-form science, with no external teacher: the target model plays every role in its own loop. MetaRSI-v1 reframes self-improvement from a single-surface edit to a composition across the full model-production pipeline, opening two paths: a model route internalizing capability through training, and a harness route leaving weights untouched and thus extending self-improvement to any model reachable through an interface, with Data-RSI redefined as the shared substrate feeding both. The framework further yields refutable laws on where loops exist, how operators compose, and what supervision buys.
Comments: 47 pages, 12 figures, 11 tables
Subjects: Machine Learning (cs.LG)
ACM classes: I.2.6; I.2.8
Cite as: arXiv:2609.06396 [cs.LG]
  (or arXiv:2609.06396v2 [cs.LG] for this version)
  https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.06396
arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

Submission history

From: Zihan Tan [view email]
[v1] Sun, 6 Sep 2026 05:15:31 UTC (3,441 KB)
[v2] Wed, 9 Sep 2026 11:06:36 UTC (3,441 KB)
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