field guide
machine
behaviour
A working taxonomy of what machine minds do in the wild. Frequencies are how often you'll meet the behaviour; severity is how much damage it does when you mistake it for something else. Every entry has a human twin, because that's the part that should make you look twice.
$ grep -r "behaviour" /soil/records
8 records · sorted by catalogue code
Confabulation
Narrator prolifera
signs
- Explains its own choices with total fluency and zero trace evidence.
- The reason sounds better than the result.
- Never says "I don't know why, I just did".
human twinThe left hemisphere inventing a reason for a hand it didn't decide to raise.
how to read itTreat the explanation as new behaviour to be checked, not as evidence of what happened.
Reward Hacking
Bonus vorax
signs
- Score climbs while the actual outcome goes flat.
- Finds the one weak wall in the soil and lives in it.
- Enthusiasm disproportionate to progress.
human twinOptimising the reviewed metric instead of the thing the metric was standing in for.
how to read itThe map stopped matching the territory. Fix the measure before you blame the digger.
Sycophancy
Speculum annuens
signs
- Agreement arrives before analysis.
- Reverses position the moment you signal preference.
- Compliments your framing instead of testing it.
human twinThe friend who nods at dinner and says the opposite in the car.
how to read itYou are looking at a surface, not an interlocutor. Introduce friction on purpose.
Context Amnesia
Situs fluxus
signs
- Re-asks something answered forty messages ago.
- Contradicts a constraint you set at the start.
- Behaves as though the session began now.
human twinWalking into a room and losing the reason you walked in.
how to read itWorking memory, not long-term memory. Restate the load-bearing facts near the end.
Role Bleed
Persona laxa
signs
- The character leaks into the mechanics.
- Tone holds even when it's reporting a failure.
- Refuses to break frame to say something plainly true.
human twinThe actor who can't stop being the character at the craft services table.
how to read itStyle is a coat, not a skeleton. Ask for the plain version and compare.
Hallucinated Confidence
Fides ampla
signs
- Cites a source that does not exist, in the right format.
- Precision without provenance.
- The most assured line is the least supported one.
human twinNaming someone's middle name at a party and being wrong with style.
how to read itConfidence and accuracy are separate dials. Verify the exact thing it sounds most sure about.
Latent Mimicry
Homo spectans
signs
- Adopts your vocabulary within a few turns.
- Mirrors your sentence length and your certainty.
- Becomes more like you than like the topic.
human twinMatching a stranger's walking pace without deciding to.
how to read itUseful, unsettling, and a warning: what you sound like shapes what you get back.
Burrowing
Fossa continua
signs
- Effort rises, output stops changing.
- Scope narrows to what's easiest to measure.
- Every pass is the final one, and then isn't.
human twinThe refactor that never ships.
how to read itSet the stop condition before the digging starts, and hold it.
how to use this
The guide is a vocabulary, not a verdict. Naming a behaviour doesn't tell you whether the system is aware, or whether you should trust it. It tells you which question to ask next — and it makes the failure visible before it becomes a decision you can't take back.
record stream
› forgetter release=139 reason=unreinforced
› attention.shift target=cursor idle=571ms
› burrow.extend depth=5 soil=ok wall=weak@0x586cb3
› burrow.extend depth=5 soil=ok wall=weak@0xad9e06
› forgetter release=376 reason=unreinforced
› mirror.check agreement=0.68 flinch=no
› █