- Will OpenAI or Anthropic announce recursive self-improvement by December 31, 2026?8¢8%
Anthropic and OpenAI have reported substantial large language model assistance in their own research and development without claiming full recursive self-improvement, or RSI, where an AI system autonomously designs and trains its successor. Anthropic’s September 2026 update showed Claude authoring over 80% of merged code and handling 26% of core R&D tasks autonomously—up sharply from early 2026—while stating no measured workflow runs fully closed-loop. OpenAI reached its “automated research intern” milestone in September, logging 3.1 agent-workdays per human workday, but retains a March 2028 target for a fully automated AI researcher. Co-founder Jack Clark shifted his personal RSI timeline forward to 2027 based on rapid gains in research-taste benchmarks, and both labs emphasize safety limits and human oversight amid calls for frontier pacing and potential regulation. These verified capability jumps without an announced closed loop shape trader views on near-term public declarations.
Rules
This market will resolve to "Yes" if OpenAI or Anthropic, or an official representative of either company, announces that the company has achieved recursive self-improvement by 11:59 PM ET on the specified date. Otherwise, this market will resolve to "No". Recursive self-improvement means a capability, as described in the company's announcement, in which the company's AI autonomously conducts the research and development needed to materially improve the general capabilities of its most capable or near-frontier AI systems, or to produce a more capable successor, with the improved system able to drive further such improvements. Humans may set high-level goals and provide resources, oversight, and approval, but must not supply the substantive research choices or the technical solution. Improvements that are toy, narrow, sandboxed, proof-of-concept, or limited to prompts, skills, or benchmark scores will not qualify. A qualifying announcement must describe the capability as currently achieved in an official capacity. Statements that AI is assisting, accelerating, or writing code for the company's research, statements of future plans or expectations, speculation, interviewer characterizations, leaks, model outputs, and third-party claims will not qualify. A public release, a named model, a technical demonstration, and independent verification are not required. The primary resolution source for this market will be official information from OpenAI and Anthropic or their official representatives; however, a consensus of credible reporting may also be used.