Living Stewardship Prototype

Status: early research prototype · locally runnable · no participant results

The baseline requires a participant to choose one of three authored positions, then records the chosen branch and its authored result. The project calls this required pause ritual friction. An optional second path loads a small model in the browser, generates an argument against the initial position and requires the participant to accept, overrule or revise.

A separate route opens only after the browser verifies a key locally, without an account or holder record. The project calls this access pattern custodianship.

The repository tests whether these mechanisms work. It does not demonstrate an effect on autonomy or any other human outcome.

Three-minute reviewer route

Serve the repository root so the demo can load its relative vendored runtime:

python3 -m http.server 4173

Open http://127.0.0.1:4173/demo/.

• Baseline: choose a position, inspect the authored result and replay its receipt. No model is loaded and the application initiates no request after its static module graph loads.
• Counter-reading: choose the counter-reading study condition, make an initial judgement, wait for the first model download, then accept, overrule or revise. Overruling requires a reason of at least 40 characters.
• Offline key route: use the public demonstration key in the reviewer guide.

Run the complete evidence suite:

npm test

Demonstrated in the repository

• no gate position is preselected;
• the baseline cannot continue without an explicit choice;
• each choice displays a different authored branch title, result and next prompt;
• baseline receipts reconstruct the same scenario version and authored result;
• the optional counter-reading layer is configured for a pinned 360-million- parameter instruct model running through WebGPU;
• unavailable WebGPU or rejected generated output produces a visibly labelled scripted fallback;
• the final response must be accept, overrule or revise;
• an overrule cannot close without a reason of at least 40 characters;
• the research receipt preserves the initial position, verbatim counter-reading, generator provenance, response, reason and final position;
• one declared origin supplies model assets through bodyless requests;
• model assets are cached by the browser after the first successful load, subject to browser eviction;
• the baseline and sealed-key paths send no participant data.

Proposed, not demonstrated

The proposed 90-day work is a 36-participant exploratory study comparing the baseline and counter-reading conditions in counterbalanced order. The primary measure is the overrule rate for model-generated encounters. Written reasons are the secondary measure and would be coded independently by two raters using a published scheme.

No participant has been recruited. No overrule-rate result, validated measure or human benefit exists. See the research plan and preregistration.

Evidence and limitations

Statement	Status	Limit
Explicit judgement is required	Demonstrated by interface and tests	Two authored scenarios
The choices display different authored states	Demonstrated by branch and replay tests	Textual difference, not participant validation
Baseline receipts reconstruct displayed results	Demonstrated under the defined replay rule	Run ID and timestamp are provenance only
A key opens a session-only sealed route	Demonstrated by local hash verification	Public reviewer key; secrecy is not tested
The counter-reading receipt enforces response and provenance fields	Demonstrated by code and tests	Browser-model output quality is not established
Friction may reduce excessive deference	Working hypothesis	No participant results
Overrule rate may describe patterns of deference	Proposed measure	No validated interpretation

Full limits: Evidence and Limitations.

Model and network boundary

The model runtime is vendored in this repository rather than loaded as a hosted script. In the counter-reading condition only, it requests pinned model assets from https://huggingface.co using GET or HEAD without a request body. Prompts, reasons, responses and receipts are not included in requests. The runtime is configured for WebGPU and single-threaded WASM support so it does not depend on cross-origin isolation headers.

“Curriculum-bounded” means the prompt contains only the approved scenario, three authored positions and selected position; there is no search, retrieval, private corpus or participant profile. It does not mean that pretrained knowledge has been removed. See the model technical note.

The Enforced Claims Register

Restraint here is enforced by a test: tests/test-claims.mjs fails when public prose turns a prohibited item below into an affirmative capability or result.

The repository prohibits claims of:

• a working Flow-State Algorithm;
• flow detection;
• cognitive-resilience measurement;
• Proof-of-Flow;
• physiological inference;
• validated autonomy benefits or participant outcomes;
• formal proof that PFLG is a new logic system;
• scenario impossibility for deterministic AI;
• an operational full Paradox Engine;
• completion of Edition 0;
• a physical edition currently for sale, in print or distributed;
• connected wearables;
• subliminal influence;
• demonstrated recursively amplified model capability.

Qualified discussion of future research remains permitted only when visibly labelled proposed, hypothesis, absent or not demonstrated.

Privacy

Run data remains in browser memory unless the participant downloads a receipt. No receipt is uploaded. The offline key is hashed locally, compared, cleared and omitted from the receipt. No identity is requested or created.

Project position

• The Stewardship Model — subtitle: The Living Editions of Principia Paradoxica — is the research and governance proposition.
• Ludus Paradoxica is the broader playable discipline.
• Principia Paradoxica is the wider publication and artistic project.
• The Paradox Engine is future consequence infrastructure and is not operational in this repository.

The Living Stewardship Prototype is a bounded experiment, not the full form of those wider projects.

Project files

• Concept
• The Stewardship Model
• Offline Key Access
• The AI Role
• Research Question
• System Boundary
• Evidence and Limitations
• Ethics, Privacy and Consent
• Grant Reviewer Guide
• 90-Day Research Plan
• Preregistration
• Delivery Capacity
• Local Model Technical Note
• Proposed Interaction and Sensing Roadmap

GitHub Pages

The root project doorway links to the demo and evidence. All local demo paths are relative so the site works from the /living-stewardship-prototype/ subpath. The empty .nojekyll file permits the _reports/ directory to be served. The Pages test starts a real HTTP server at that subpath and loads the doorway, demo assets and browser module graph from it.

Licence

Project code is licensed under the MIT Licence. Documentation is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Vendored runtime files retain their included licence.

The Principia Paradoxica narrative corpus is not licensed under these terms and is not present in this repository. See LICENSE.