Methodology & Experimental Protocols
Rigorous experimental controls, safe simulation containment, and falsifiable validation standards governing developmental AI inquiries.
1. Simulated Developmental Environments
All early developmental stages are executed inside high-fidelity continuous physics simulation environments. These environments enforce Newtonian mechanics, collision contacts, proprioceptive joint limits, and sensorimotor latency. By isolating the agent in simulation, we prevent physical safety hazards while maintaining reproducible seeds across test runs.
2. Caregiver Interaction Protocols
Social development (Stage 05) requires structured interaction with human researchers acting as caregivers. Interaction is strictly governed by pre-registered interaction transcripts, joint attention tasks, and transparent logging. Caregivers provide feedback through communicative gestures and situated dialogue without editing the underlying synaptic weights directly.
3. Safety Containment & Interruptibility
Autonomous goal-seeking systems (Stage 07) must be provably interruptible. Our architecture decouples high-level goal formulation from low-level execution actuators through an independent safety supervisor. The supervisor can freeze agent state, revert to historical checkpoints, or terminate execution instantaneously without corrupting persistent memory logs.
4. Scientific Evidence Taxonomy
Every published research finding is tagged with an immutable evidence level:
- Untested Hypothesis: Theoretical premise or mathematical formulation without empirical runs.
- Preliminary: Single-environment observation requiring broader validation.
- Observed: Statistically significant outcome replicated across multiple random seeds.
- Replicated: Verified across independent hardware configurations and environment distributions.
- Independently Validated: Confirmed by external third-party researchers without Openbird code access.