# Criminal Penalties for Recursive Self-Improvement **Entity class:** Policy instrument **Domain:** Artificial intelligence / Law **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition Criminal penalties for recursive self-improvement would impose personal or organizational punishment for developing or operating specified self-modifying AI systems. ## Mechanism and significance The policy's meaning depends on definitions, intent, capability thresholds, jurisdiction, and whether prohibited conduct can be distinguished from ordinary automated software improvement. ## Relationships - **Research dossier:** [[research/ASI and RSI Timeline Research Moonshots|ASI and RSI Timeline Research Moonshots]] - **Ontology route:** [[ASI and RSI Timeline Ontology#AI Control, Law, and Alignment|AI Control, Law, and Alignment]] - **Primary fields:** [[AI Control]] · [[AI Safety]] · [[AI Infrastructure Consent]] - **Adjacent concepts:** [[AI Soul Document]] · [[Liability-Driven Alignment]] · [[System Prompt]] · [[Supervised Fine-Tuning]] ## Sources and provenance - [[research/ASI and RSI Timeline Research Moonshots|ASI and RSI Timeline Research Moonshots]] — immediate source for this node's role in the broadcast research map. ## Evidence boundary The research dossier establishes why this entity or concept belongs in the Moonshots ontology. Time-sensitive organizational, product, policy, and performance claims should be checked against the linked primary source or a current authoritative source before reuse as settled fact.