PROGRAM 05 / ESTABLISHED 2020
VESPER
Counterfactual engineering
Some decisions should be encountered only once.
Executable rehearsals that expose irreversible consequences before an autonomous system receives permission to act.
01 / Approach
VESPER couples bounded world models to physical instrument loops. Candidate actions are rehearsed against competing accounts of the same environment. Every branch carries its assumptions, affected parties, and point of no return. Branches cannot issue instructions to the installation they describe.
02 / Selected finding
In the V-08 switching exercise, 4,096 candidate sequences were examined inside a two-second decision window. Eleven passed the nominal objective. None survived the loss of an unverified return path. The live controller received a refusal certificate, not a preferred sequence.
03 / Evidence boundary
Rehearsal is not prediction. Unknown dependencies remain unknown, and faster simulation does not make an assumption true. VESPER has no authority to approve its own recommendations.
04 / Ongoing inquiry
The next series tests situations in which waiting itself causes irreversible loss. A refusal must account for what happens while nobody acts.
Associated records.
D-0 / PUBLIC EDITIONSThe decision not taken
Four thousand and ninety-six rehearsals. Eleven apparent successes. No instruction issued.