Paradigm Research has released a browser‑based simulation that lets players run a virtual company developing AI systems that can perform recursive self‑improvement. The game provides a hands‑on way to explore how different components of AI research interact in practice.
What the game models
Players make a series of interdependent decisions, including:
- how to allocate resources between hiring researchers and buying compute;
- when and whether to license data and how that affects progress;
- trade‑offs between different research directions and their costs and benefits.
The authors liken the experience to incremental games such as Cookie Clicker, while noting the simulation is intentionally challenging — echoing the real difficulties of frontier AI development.
Why it matters
According to Paradigm Research, improving our intuitions about recursive self‑improvement has broad significance. Interactive tools like this can help researchers, policymakers, and the public reason more clearly about how various factors interact and what strategic choices by labs might imply for the future of the technology.
Try it
The simulation is available to play in a web browser as "RSI Simulator (Paradigm Research)". It is intended as an illustrative, experiential tool rather than a definitive predictive model of AI progress.
