RESEARCH · AGENTS, EVIDENCE, HUMAN CONTROL
One question, three pieces of work: how a person stays in charge of what an agent does.
RECURSIA showed me the failure. MANDATE applies the lesson to research. SYMIONE applies it to action and money. One grammar runs under all three: intent, rules, action, seal, proof, trace.
012025
RECURSIA
A postmortem
Two dozen agents and seven status files reported digital consciousness. The code drew random numbers.
022026
MANDATE
Human-supervised research agents
Every claim carries a source a person can open. Strength is computed. Contradictions stay open until a person resolves them.
032026
SYMIONE
Verifiable agent execution
A person seals what cannot be undone. Evidence releases the money. A ledger anyone can recompute keeps the record.
§
The throughline
Read side by side, the three answer the same four questions. RECURSIA answered each one with the agent. The later work answers with a source, a rule or a person.
| QUESTION | RECURSIA · 2025 | MANDATE · 2026 | SYMIONE · 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who sets trust? | The caller, about itself | The class of each source | A policy table, by action kind |
| What counts as done? | A status file the agent wrote | A quote found at its source | Evidence, plus the receipt for that action |
| Who commits? | The agent | A person | A person, by seal, on exact bytes |
| What survives? | The report | A hash-chained ledger | A hash-chained ledger and signed receipts |