arxivphysics.soc-phcs.AI2026-07-05
Self-Reference in Large Language Models: The Introspection Threshold for Recursive Self-Improvement
Jiang Zhang, Bing Yuan, Qian Zhang
The pursuit of self-evolving AI raises a critical question: when is autonomous self-improvement sustainable rather than degenerative? Drawing an analogy to von Neumann's complexity threshold for self-reproducing automata, we argue that sustainable recursive self-improvement in La…