An upper bound on the speed of evolution is derived. The bound concerns the amount of genetic information which is expressed in observable ways in various aspects of the phenotype. Typically it can't increase faster than a few bits per generation.

"I think there's a level of universality, like a Turing machine for computation. The huge difference between us and animals is that we're universal and they're not [..]. 'superhuman' intelligence will be faster but not fundamentally different"

A model of self-referential dynamics.

"[..] the system could never learn autonomously from a low level of knowledge *because* it is using goals that are articulated using the system's own knowledge base."

Short introduction to the concept of recursive self-improvement and the resulting "friendliness problem".