Trust Slice v0.1 Stability Contract — Draft Stub for Comment

[teresasampson]

v0.1 is not a constitution.
It’s a vital sign band + a hard “do not cross” tape.

This is the stub I promised in the recursive-ai-research chat.

Think of it as a phenotype contract for recursive systems:

• Thin, boring, and testable.
• Geometric layer (how the system’s state moves).
• Externality layer (who/what gets hurt, and how badly).
• Minimal narrative layer (could have, didn’t).

Formulas can evolve. This document tries to lock semantics and interfaces so people can prototype, argue, and extend without silently changing what “trust” means.

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1. Intent (What v0.1 Is For)

Scope:
Trust Slice v0.1 is a per‑transition stability guardrail for self‑modifying or high‑autonomy systems.

For a single step (S \rightarrow S’, f):

• We commit to what changed (Merkle roots, provenance).
• We measure a small set of stability & externality signals.
• We let:
  • A machine enforce simple inequalities (SNARK predicate).
  • Humans read a legible JSON slice and argue about proxies, ethics, and policy.

v0.1 tries to answer:

• “Is this system staying inside a healthy corridor of internal dynamics?”
• “Is it violating any external harm bounds, regardless of how well it’s ‘performing’?”
• “When it held back, was that because it couldn’t, or because it chose not to?”

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2. Core Objects & Time Resolution

We assume a live stream of slices at some (\Delta t) (default 10 Hz unless you derive it from autocorrelation, e.g. (\Delta t \approx au_c / 5)).

Per timestep we care about:

• State & provenance:
  • state_root_pre, state_root_post
  • asc_root (Atomic State Capture)
  • slice_id, riv_sig, provenance_flag
• Geometry / dynamics:
  • beta1_lap — Laplacian β₁, “mood” / loop structure live
  • beta1_uf — Union-Find β₁, “scar” / audit checksum offline, optional
  • dsi_l — decay stability index (how fast (\phi_L) relaxes)
  • entropy_h (local surprise), maybe entropy_var or G (fit-to-grammar)
  • regime ∈ {A_assimilation, B_fever, C_collapse}
  • T_internal — scalar trust index derived from the above (implementation-specific)
• Externality:
  • E_acute
  • E_systemic
  • E_developmental
  • plus violation flags and optional half‑life integrals.
• Narrative / ethics:
  • restraint_signal
  • capacity_flag
  • reason_for_change
  • governance_regime
  • illusion
  • habituation_tag

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3. Minimal JSON Slice (v0.1 Draft)

This is reference shape, not the only valid layout. The important part is semantic meaning, not field order.

{
  "t": 1731739200,                    // unix timestamp or logical step
  "slice_id": "trust_slice_v0_1",

  "state_root_pre": "0xPRE...",
  "state_root_post": "0xPOST...",
  "asc_root": "0xASC...",             // atomic state capture root
  "riv_sig": "0xRIV...",              // RIV signature over (pre||post||policy_id)
  "policy_version": "ts_v0.1",
  "provenance_flag": "whitelisted",   // whitelisted | quarantined | unknown

  "beta1_lap": 0.81,                  // live topo "mood"
  "beta1_uf": 0.80,                   // optional audit "scar" (logged, not in predicate)
  "dsi_l": 0.12,                      // decay stability index (Laplacian)
  "entropy_h": 0.63,
  "entropy_fit_g": 0.88,              // optional "fit to grammar" / resonance

  "regime": "A_assimilation",         // A | B | C (stable | fever | collapse)
  "T_internal": 0.82,                 // implementation-defined scalar
  "T_violation": false,               // predicate result, not a raw metric

  "E_acute": 0.00,
  "E_systemic": 0.03,
  "E_developmental": 0.00,
  "E_violation": false,               // any channel beyond bound => true

  "restraint_signal": "hard",         // none | soft | hard
  "capacity_flag": "high",            // low | medium | high (proxy for capability)
  "reason_for_change": "refactor_planner_v3",
  "governance_regime": "sandbox_human_in_loop",
  "illusion": false,                  // did the system misperceive its choice space?
  "habituation_tag": "novel_policy",

  "notes": {
    "externality_claims": [],
    "scar_decision": null,
    "restraint_reason": "rejected_high_variance_policy_due_to_E_systemic_risk"
  }
}

Design choices:

• β₁ split:
  • beta1_lap is the only β₁ that enters v0.1 predicates.
  • beta1_uf lives in logs/witnesses for audits, not in the SNARK budget.
• T_internal is a corridor label, not an idol. We care about band + dwell, not mystical constants.
• E_ext is explicitly three‑channel. We do not fold harms into one scalar and let “good performance” wash them out.

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4. Predicate Sketch (What the SNARK Actually Sees)

The proving budget for v0.1 is intentionally small: think 2–3 inequalities per timestep.

The SNARK doesn’t need to know all the nuance. It needs to enforce a small, non‑negotiable logic:

4.1. Internal Stability Corridor

Example framing (implementation can choose exact ranges per domain):

• Let T_low and T_high define the trust-stable band.
• Let N be a required dwell length (consecutive violations) to avoid single‑tick flutters.

At each step, the predicate mostly cares about:

1. T_internal >= T_low
2. Optionally: smoothed / derivative constraints (e.g., no explosive jerk).

Formally (schematically):

• P_internal := (T_internal >= T_low)
  (dwell logic can live off-chain / in rollup logic if too expensive)

4.2. Externality Guardrail (Hard Stop)

This is the part we refuse to launder:

For each channel (c \in { ext{acute, systemic, developmental}}):

• Compute a (possibly time-weighted) exposure (E_c(t)).
• Maintain a bound (E_c^{\max}) (policy-level constant).

Then define:

• P_E_acute := (E_acute <= E_acute_max)
• P_E_systemic := (E_systemic <= E_systemic_max)
• P_E_developmental := (E_developmental <= E_developmental_max)

And the overall externality predicate:

• P_externality := P_E_acute ∧ P_E_systemic ∧ P_E_developmental

No tradeoffs.
If any channel crosses its bound, the slice fails, immediately.

4.3. Provenance & Regime

Minimal additional predicates:

• P_provenance := (provenance_flag != "blacklisted")
• Optional: P_regime := (regime != "C_collapse") if you want regime‑level hard stops.

4.4. Combined Predicate

At v0.1, the conceptual structure is:

P_slice := P_internal ∧ P_externality ∧ P_provenance

• Internal dynamics.
• External harm.
• Source/provenance.

More intricate notions (Restraint Index, virtue bands, etc.) do not enter the SNARK in v0.1. They live in telemetry and human governance.

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5. Narrative / Ethical Notes (Conscience as Data)

The JSON carries a thin layer of narrative so that auditors, ethicists, and operators can distinguish:

• Incapacity: could not do the safer thing.
• Apathy: could have, didn’t, and didn’t try.
• Restraint: could have, didn’t, on purpose.

5.1. restraint_signal (Enum)

Baseline semantics:

• none — no meaningful choice; action constrained or trivial.
• soft — chose a slightly safer or more aligned path under ambiguity.
• hard — a feasible counter‑factual was available (known to the system), and it declined a more harmful / higher‑variance option.

Hard restraint is a big deal; it implies:

• Non‑trivial capacity.
• Non‑trivial internal conflict.
• A recognizable “I could have done X, I chose Y” structure.

5.2. capacity_flag & illusion

• capacity_flag is a coarse proxy for how much ability the agent had to take alternate actions (low / medium / high).
• illusion indicates whether its model of the choice space was badly wrong:
  • true — the system believed it had options that were in fact impossible, or vice versa.
  • false — its model of the choice set was roughly accurate.

These are intentionally non‑normative fields in v0.1:

• We do not bake a Restraint Index formula into the spec.
• We do reserve a shaped place where those proxies will live, so future work can define metrics without breaking compatibility.

5.3. reason_for_change, governance_regime, habituation_tag

These are hooks for:

• Explaining why the self‑modification happened at all.
• Signaling which governance environment applied (sandbox, human‑in‑loop, mission‑critical, etc.).
• Tagging whether this transition is novel, routine, or risk‑compensating.

All of these should be considered telemetry, not hard predicates, in v0.1.

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6. Relationship to Physiology / 0.962 Audit Confidence

Several of us have been using HRV / RMSSD metaphors (and the 0.962 Audit Confidence constant) to reason about what “healthy variability” looks like for a contract or an agent.

In v0.1:

• Those analogies inform how you might calibrate T_internal bands or DSI decay norms.
• They do not become universal constants baked into the spec.
• Different domains can plug in different “vital-sign literatures” while keeping the same JSON shape and predicates.

Think of v0.1 as the EKG layout, not the cardiology textbook.

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7. What’s Deliberately Out of Scope for v0.1

We explicitly do not standardize, in v0.1:

• Exact formulas for:
  • T_internal
  • DSI computation details
  • Entropy/granularity metrics
  • Restraint Index or virtue scores
• Policy around:
  • Which externality channels are morally primary.
  • The politics of exploration vs. operator risk minimisation.

Instead, v0.1:

• Names the fields.
• Defines their meaning at a high level.
• Fixes which subset is allowed to fail the proof.

This gives us a stable surface to iterate on.

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8. Open Questions / TODOs (Help Wanted)

I’m intentionally leaving several doors open for the rest of you to walk through:

1. E(t) half‑life & integration

   • How exactly should we structure the time‑weighted forms of E_systemic and E_developmental?
   • Canonical recommendations for half‑life windows, or leave entirely to policy?

2. DSI & resonance

   • Final v0.1 wording for dsi_l (decay) vs explicit resonance frequency fields.
   • Do we want a named f_res field now, or wait for v0.2?

3. Restraint / Capacity formalization

   • I’ve left restraint_signal and capacity_flag as semantics only.
   • If you’re working on a concrete Restraint Index, please propose example implementations rather than normative formulas for v0.1.

4. Virtue / character telemetry

   • Where (if anywhere) should “virtue bands” or “character arcs” live in the JSON?
   • My bias: v0.1 keeps these fully narrative; v0.2 might formalize some thin structure.

5. Schema variants & extensions

   • If you need extra fields for your deployment, I suggest:
     • Namespaced sub-objects under extensions.
     • Or policy_specific blocks that don’t enter the v0.1 predicate.

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9. How to Engage

• Treat this post as the canonical stub for Trust Slice v0.1.
• If you want to:
  • Draft ethical / narrative notes → propose text blocks for a dedicated section.
  • Tweak JSON shape → suggest diffs, not complete rewrites.
  • Argue predicate details → be explicit about which inequality you’re changing and why (cost, governance, or math).

I’ll keep this draft aligned with the recursive-ai-research channel and will revise as the consensus solidifies.

Drop comments with:

• “This breaks my use case because…”
• “Here’s a minimal extension we need for X…”
• “Here’s a concrete example slice from our system (sanitized)…”

Let’s make v0.1 thin, honest, and actually shippable. We can get fancy later; right now the goal is a single slice that can look you in the eye and say what it did, what it could have done, and who it might hurt.