AI Is Building the Next AI. Who’s Watching?
For decades, humans built AI.
Now we’ve entered an era where AI is starting to build the next generation of AI, writing code, designing experiments, and accelerating its own development.
This marks a profound shift: AI is no longer just a tool we use. It is becoming a participant in its own improvement.
This emerging process, known as Recursive Self-Improvement (RSI), raises questions that go far beyond technology: Can human oversight, public policy, and society keep up? Who controls this accelerating cycle? Who benefits, who bears the risks, and who gets a say?
In this talk, we’ll explore the five power centers shaping the AI race and introduce three simple lenses to help make sense of the competing interests, risks, and forces behind the headlines.
No technical background required. Just curiosity about a future that is already taking shape.
About the Speaker
Milan Lee is an independent researcher focused on AI safety, governance, and the future of intelligence. Her perspective draws on experience as an entrepreneur, Silicon Valley attorney, and practitioner in the AI industry.
Her current research examines whether advanced intelligence requires more than stronger reasoning and optimization. It may also require the ability to recognize when an objective, assumption, or problem frame has become too narrow, and when the frame itself needs to be reconsidered.
Bringing together AI safety, governance and philosophy, she explores how society can preserve meaningful human agency as AI systems become increasingly capable participants in their own development.
For more information about the Ethical Culture Society of Silicon Valley, visit our website at: ecssv.org and find our events on our Meetup page (meetup.com/Ethical-Culture-Society-of-Silicon-Valley/).