mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Dream-RSI: Recursive Self-Improvement through Evolving Worlds

arXiv 2609.14858 ↗First posted 14 Sep 2026cs.CLcited by 18

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Abstract (arXiv)

Recursive self-improvement is becoming essential for autonomous AI agents, whose progress depends on discovering high-value solutions across complex domains. Effective exploration drives this process, yet managing and improving exploration strategies remains a major bottleneck. Current systems face a fundamental dilemma: fixed strategies fail to adapt as search spaces scale, while online policy optimization must navigate vast meta-search spaces under delayed, expensive feedback from long-horizon rollouts. We introduce textscDream-RSI, a framework for scalable, recursively self-improving exploration. A lightweight orchestration layer makes exploration explicit and programmable while leaving the underlying base agent unchanged. Our key insight is that accumulated discovery history can act as a replay simulator over the realized search space. By dreaming within this simulator built from historical discovery trees, textscDream-RSI obtains immediate, low-cost off-policy feedback to evaluate and refine exploration policies without repeated, expensive online evaluation. The improved policy is then redeployed online to drive further discovery, continuously expanding the simulator pool in a self-improving loop. Across 9 tasks in 4 domains, textscDream-RSI achieves competitive quality and improves discovery efficiency in several settings.

Key facts. Cited by 18 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 44 of its 61 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 14 Sep 2026.

Builds on

44 of 61 references.

References · 44

  1. 2019Dream to Control: Learning Behaviors by Latent Imaginationcited by 1,653
  2. 2018World Modelscited by 1,513
  3. 2023Mastering Diverse Domains through World Modelscited by 1,253
  4. 2020Mastering Atari with Discrete World Modelscited by 1,007
  5. 2025AlphaEvolve: A coding agent for scientific and algorithmic discoverycited by 867
  6. 2026Terminal-Bench: Benchmarking Agents on Hard, Realistic Tasks in Command Line Interfacescited by 585
  7. 2025Agentic Context Engineering: Evolving Contexts for Self-Improving Language Modelscited by 398
  8. 2025Darwin Godel Machine: Open-Ended Evolution of Self-Improving Agentscited by 356
  9. 2026Meta-Harness: End-to-End Optimization of Model Harnessescited by 309
  10. 2025Memory in the Age of AI Agentscited by 303
  11. 2025ReasoningBank: Scaling Agent Self-Evolving with Reasoning Memorycited by 284
  12. 2025R-Zero: Self-Evolving Reasoning LLM from Zero Datacited by 228
32 more
  1. 2025KernelBench: Can LLMs Write Efficient GPU Kernels?cited by 225
  2. 2017Cognitive Mapping and Planning for Visual Navigationcited by 212
  3. 2025ShinkaEvolve: Towards Open-Ended And Sample-Efficient Program Evolutioncited by 174
  4. 2025Training Agents Inside of Scalable World Modelscited by 136
  5. 2026CoEvoSkills: Self-Evolving Agent Skills via Co-Evolutionary Verificationcited by 128
  6. 2026Learning to Discover at Test Timecited by 115
  7. 2025Mathematical exploration and discovery at scalecited by 77
  8. 2025ThetaEvolve: Test-time Learning on Open Problemscited by 64
  9. 2025Parallel-R1: Towards Parallel Thinking via Reinforcement Learningcited by 61
  10. 2026EvoX: Meta-Evolution for Automated Discoverycited by 60
  11. 2026SkillOS: Learning Skill Curation for Self-Evolving Agentscited by 49
  12. 2025CodeEvolve: an open source evolutionary coding agent for algorithmic discovery and optimizationcited by 44
  13. 2026Long-Horizon-Terminal-Bench: Testing the Limits of Agents on Long-Horizon Terminal Tasks with Dense Reward-Based Gradingcited by 31
  14. 2026MLEvolve: A Self-Evolving Framework for Automated Machine Learning Algorithm Discoverycited by 28
  15. 2026DeltaEvolve: Accelerating Scientific Discovery through Momentum-Driven Evolutioncited by 26
  16. 2026PACEvolve: Enabling Progress-Aware Consistent Evolutioncited by 24
  17. 2026K-Search: LLM Kernel Generation via Co-Evolving Intrinsic World Modelcited by 24
  18. 2026MetaSkill-Evolve: Recursive Self-Improvement of LLM Agents via Two-Timescale Meta-Skill Evolutioncited by 22
  19. 2026MM-Zero: Self-Evolving Multi-Model Vision Language Models From Zero Datacited by 21
  20. 2026Recursive Synthesis for Long-Horizon Terminal Taskscited by 19
  21. 2026AutoKernel: Autonomous GPU Kernel Optimization via Iterative Agent-Driven Searchcited by 18
  22. 2026G-Zero: Self-Play for Open-Ended Generation from Zero Datacited by 17
  23. 2026EnvHarness: Awakening Static Worlds for Agent Learningcited by 13
  24. 2026LLMs Improving LLMs: Agentic Discovery for Test-Time Scalingcited by 10
  25. 2026SwarmResearch: Orchestrating Coding Agents for Open-Ended Discoverycited by 6
  26. 2026AgenticRecTune: Multi-Agent with Self-Evolving Skillhub for Recommendation System Optimizationcited by 5
  27. 2026Metan: Recursive Self-Improvement through Emergent Depthcited by 5
  28. 2026PACEvolve++: Improving Test-time Learning for Evolutionary Search Agentscited by 4
  29. 2026Test-Time Learning with an Evolving Librarycited by 3
  30. 2026Rubrics as Visual-Repair Context for Self-Evolving UI-to-Code Generationcited by 2
  31. 2026It Takes Two to Match: Co-Evolving Generative Retriever with Reinforcement Learningcited by 2
  32. 2026Teaching LLMs to Self-Evolve: Cultivating Core Meta-Skills with Reinforcement Learningcited by 1

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 18.

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  1. 2026Control the Harness, Control the Cost: Routing and Governing AI Coding Agents in the Enterprisecited by 1
  2. 2026Scaling Trajectories for Complex Tasks through Recursive Self-Rewritecited by 1
  3. 2026Advancing Model Research in AgentX: Long-Horizon Autonomy for Industrial Recommender Systemscited by 0
  4. 2026ReVision3D: Attribution-Guided Recursive Self-Improvement for 3D Medical Perceptioncited by 0
  5. 2026Can Terminal Agents Trust Their Own Verification? Diagnosing and Improving Self-Verificationcited by 0
  6. 2026Experimental Experience Modeling for Autonomous Researchcited by 0
  7. 2026Towards Better Exploration in Sequential Test-Time Scalingcited by 0
  8. 2026LabBook: Harnessing Experimental History for Efficient LLM-Driven Discoverycited by 0
  9. 2026Align Then Reason: A Multimodal Lip-Sync Judge for Dubbingcited by 0
  10. 2026MMPostTrainBench: Benchmarking Autonomous Research for Multimodal Post-Trainingcited by 0
  11. 2026CARE: Certifying Acceleration for Vision-Language-Action Inferencecited by 0
  12. 2026PhysEvo: Astra Can Act, Let Itcited by 0
6 more
  1. 2026From Pareto to Preference: Personalized Test-Time Scaling via Amortized Agentic Policy Discoverycited by 0
  2. 2026Trace-to-Architecture: Capability Bottleneck Diagnosis for Harness Revisioncited by 0
  3. 2026MedEvo: Medical Reasoning Evolution through Knowledge Navigationcited by 0
  4. 2026ECG-RSI: Recursive Self-Improvement through Targeted Electrocardiogram Waveform Evolutioncited by 0
  5. 2026AReaL-RSI: Adaptive Scaling and Coordination of Recursive Self-Improvementcited by 0
  6. 2026SwarmRSI: Recursive Self-Improvement through Evolving Scientific Agent Swarmcited by 0

Similar, not cited

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  1. 2026RSIAgent: Autonomous Exploration for Recursive Self-improvement in New Environments
  2. 2026Recursive Self-Improvement in AI: From Bounded Self-Refinement to Autonomous Research Loops
  3. 2026The Last AI Built by Humans: Toward Genuine Recursive Self-Improvement
  4. 2026Drafting Agents, Not Just Tokens: Speculative Recursive Self-Improvement for Agentic Systems
  5. 2026Recursive self-improvement of AI research agents
  6. 2026APEX: Autonomous Policy Exploration for Self-Evolving LLM Agents
  7. 2026Self-discovering RL in the Era of Experience: Is Learning History an Asset or a Burden?
  8. 2026From Existing Methods to New Research Ideas: Two Perspectives on Recursive Self-Improvement