The Singularity & Recursive Self-Improvement ☆

The singularity hypothesis (Good 1965, Vinge, Kurzweil) holds that once AI can improve itself, progress compounds beyond human tracking. Its modern, tamer form is real: labs report models writing growing shares of their own code and accelerating chip design (AlphaChip), and 'automated AI research' is an explicit goal at several labs. Critics answer that physical bottlenecks — the fabs, power plants and packaging lines in this database — put a speed limit on any software-only explosion.