Using coding tools for AI research is “soft” self-improvement, a user argues

One user argues that coding tools amount to “soft” recursive self-improvement—AI helping improve AI—once research and infrastructure teams start using them. They also see early public hints of more direct self-improvement. As an example, they said on September 11 that Astra was about 80% through beating Factorio. They said this required a human to create or direct the creation of a harness, the software setup for the task.