Recursive self-improvement, the idea that AI models could get so good at research and development that they train themselves, without a need for human researchers, has captivated Silicon Valley. Some in the industry have suggested that the first company to achieve RSI will gain all the benefits: after all, once one company manages to cross that threshold, how could competitors still at least partly reliant on slow human labor ever hope to catch up?

But just because the pace of RSI will be exponentially fast doesn’t mean it’s winner-takes-all, argued Anna Goldie and Azalia Mirhoseini on the latest episode of The Information’s AI Deep Dive. They are the co-founders of Ricursive Intelligence, a year-old startup developing AI systems for designing AI chips. They previously worked at Anthropic and Google, where they led work on AlphaChip, an AI system for chip design.