We self improve. Recursive self improvement means improving our means of self improvement. Reading about tactics for efficient self improvement would be recursive self improvement. Altering your neurology to gain eidetic memory so you can remember all the answers to the test, while using your neurology to figure out how to do it, would be recursive self improvement (of the kind we don't have). Then, with the comprehension problems that eidetics get you keep on altering your neurology.
It's like eating your dogfood in computer parlance.
As you say, humans can certainly improve their means of self improvement. They do that by things like learning lanugages, learning thinking tools, and inventing new thinking tools that are then passed down the generations.
IMO, those who want "recursive self improvement" to refer to something that doesn't yet exist must tie themselves in knots with counter-intuitive and non-literal conceptions of what that phrase means.
As promised, here is the "Q" part of the Less Wrong Video Q&A with Eliezer Yudkowsky.
The Rules
1) One question per comment (to allow voting to carry more information about people's preferences).
2) Try to be as clear and concise as possible. If your question can't be condensed to a few paragraphs, you should probably ask in a separate post. Make sure you have an actual question somewhere in there (you can bold it to make it easier to scan).
3) Eliezer hasn't been subpoenaed. He will simply ignore the questions he doesn't want to answer, even if they somehow received 3^^^3 votes.
4) If you reference certain things that are online in your question, provide a link.
5) This thread will be open to questions and votes for at least 7 days. After that, it is up to Eliezer to decide when the best time to film his answers will be. [Update: Today, November 18, marks the 7th day since this thread was posted. If you haven't already done so, now would be a good time to review the questions and vote for your favorites.]
Suggestions
Don't limit yourself to things that have been mentioned on OB/LW. I expect that this will be the majority of questions, but you shouldn't feel limited to these topics. I've always found that a wide variety of topics makes a Q&A more interesting. If you're uncertain, ask anyway and let the voting sort out the wheat from the chaff.
It's okay to attempt humor (but good luck, it's a tough crowd).
If a discussion breaks out about a question (f.ex. to ask for clarifications) and the original poster decides to modify the question, the top level comment should be updated with the modified question (make it easy to find your question, don't have the latest version buried in a long thread).
Update: Eliezer's video answers to 30 questions from this thread can be found here.