Throughout human history, longevity in an occupation mattered. If you completed your apprenticeship, remained on the family farm, or stayed with a company for 10, 15, or 20 years, that longevity itself added value. You accumulated experience, knowledge, relationships, and institutional wisdom. The longer you stayed, the more nearly indispensable you became.

But something has changed. Artificial Intelligence (AI) introduces a different way of thinking about productivity, and even about improvement itself.

In the world of AI, there is a concept called Recursive Self-Improvement (RSI). The basic idea is fascinating. When AI systems can improve themselves without much human interaction and oversight, those improvements will make it better at improving themselves again and again at speeds humans cannot truly comprehend.

Self-improvement doesn't simply happen one time. Improvement can compound and we can improve the way we improve ourselves, or AI improves itself. We learn from the improvement process, much like learning to ride a bicycle, drive a car, or write in cursive. We improve by improving the process by which we learn. We improve again, and on it goes.

This is true with AI, except that it can improve at the speed of computing power without burning cycles eating and sleeping and doing chores and homework. With AI, RSI is possibly only a hypothesized process at this point. However, if achieved, it would be a key ingredient of AI superintelligence.

If this theory can be applied to machines, we can apply it to ourselves. What if we developed our own RSI? To do so, we must stop asking questions such as:

• How long have I been doing this?
• What is the next step in the linear progression of my career field?

Instead, we need to reflect on these kinds of questions:

• Am I becoming better at getting better at what I do and at what one day I will need to do?
• Am I learning faster and more efficiently?
• Am I adapting to change and am I keeping pace with the scale and speed of that change?
• Am I becoming more effective and productive across multiple areas of remunerative work and in my personal and communal life?
• Am I using new technologies and tools to multiply my impact rather than simply adding competencies and experiences in a piecemeal fashion?

Personal RSI isn't about becoming faster or more productive in one area of interest or focus.

Personal RSI is about becoming wiser. It's about having better judgment. It's about developing more effective communication. It's about fostering healthier relationships. It's about gaining more resilient leadership skills. It's about enhancing creativity. It's about achieving higher levels of faithful stewardship of abilities, resources, and time.

The remarkable thing about human beings is that we don't have to remain the same person we were five years ago, or even last month. We can learn. We can adapt. We can grow. What we learn today can make us much better at learning more effectively tomorrow.

Historically, longevity and stability were ways we demonstrated our value. Increasingly, our ability to adapt and continually improve the way we improve is even more critical.

In today's world, don't just ask yourself, "How long have I been doing this?"

Ask a more relevant question: "Am I becoming better at becoming better at doing this?"

That's personal RSI. And perhaps in an age of AI, one of the most important things we can do is become more intelligent at being intelligent humans.