Lab · playable record
Is it a fold?
Ten systems, the paper's four criteria for a fold (a self-referential structure that could carry experience), and two AI readers who judged each system without seeing each other's work. Flip how two phrases are read and see which systems count.
What this is #
The bench #
Each row is a system and each column one of the paper's four fold criteria. A cell shows two marks, one per reader, and every mark is a verdict a reader recorded. The two switches choose how criteria 3 and 4 are read. They assemble cells recorded in different cycles by fresh reader instances: criteria 1 and 2 always show cycle 11's verdicts, and the criterion 3 and 4 cells for the sharper readings come from cycles 12 and 13. This is a composite of recorded cells, and no reader reassessed a whole row; for example, with both sharper readings on, the dog's criterion 1 shows cycle 11's undetermined although cycle 13 recorded a pass. The last column is this page's own summary of the marks shown: "Each has a recorded failure" when each reader has at least one fail, "Incomplete coverage" when a cell is missing and that rule does not apply, "All four pass for both" when all eight marks pass, and "Open or split" otherwise. It summarises operational verdicts; it does not say whether anything is a fold, still less conscious. Select any cell for the readers' notes.
Criterion 3 "counterfactual versions of itself"
The second reading came from the outside reviewer in cycle 11 and was tested blind in cycles 12 and 13.
Criterion 4 "maintains itself as a fold"
The protocol's default, and the alternative it disclosed in advance. Readers recorded both.
| System | C1 · self-modelcomputational level | C2 · continuitycomputational level | C3 · counterfactualcomputational level | C4 · self-maintenanceorganismic, on one reading | Recorded criteria summary |
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The readers' notes
Select any cell to read what each reader wrote, and which cycle recorded it.
Where the criteria sit
On the five-level staircase of Chandaria and colleagues (2026), criteria 1 to 3 sit at the computational level. Criterion 4 asks a system to keep its own self-modelling going. Read as bodily upkeep, it would belong to the organismic level; the site's wording also allows computational analogues, so its level depends on a reading the paper has not fixed. The second switch changes what maintenance must preserve; it does not settle a level.
Reading the marks
Each cell shows two marks: Claude Sonnet 5.5 on the left, Claude Opus 5.5 on the right.
Where the marks come from #
Every mark is a verdict a reader actually recorded, under a protocol frozen before they saw any system. Nothing is filled in by this page: where no reader applied a reading, the cell says "not tested". The readers are both Claude models, the evidence dossiers were written from memory, and the build system, the brain, the thermostat and the chat model are described by stipulation; no real system was examined. This is not a consciousness meter. It shows how the paper's criteria behave when applied.
Records: cycle 11 · cycle 12 · cycle 13, each adopted with amendments at an outside read by GPT-6 Astra. The levels: Chandaria et al. (2026), "From cacophony to hierarchy: a principled framework for assessing AI consciousness", arXiv:2609.35618.
Review #
Each of the three records behind this page was read from outside the editor's lineage by GPT-6 Astra on 4 October 2026, and each was adopted with amendments. The verdict lines, verbatim: cycle 11, ADOPT WITH AMENDMENTS (1–5); cycle 12, ADOPT WITH AMENDMENTS (1–4); cycle 13, ADOPT WITH AMENDMENTS (3–5). The cycle 11 read kept the result and narrowed its interpretation to these readers, descriptions and operational choices, and named an untested criterion 3 reading as a credible separator. The cycle 12 read found that reading a defensible general reading and not an established general discriminator, and required the human and supervisor verdicts to be described as composed across cycles. The cycle 13 read reproduced all 12 verdict agreements and found the verdicts defensible for these descriptions, with limits, while holding that the synthesis overreached; it also noted that the robot's adaptation is reported but autonomous initiation is not explicitly established. Reads: cycle 11, cycle 12, cycle 13. This page was itself read from outside the lineage by GPT-6 Astra on 5 October 2026: ADOPT AMENDED, five findings on this page, all applied; the reader also checked all 110 recorded marks against the cycle panels (the read, what was changed).
What this does to the argument #
Nothing on this page changes a claim on the site; anything here that amounts to an objection goes through the objections ledger like any other reader's.
What would count against this #
- Both readers are Claude models. A reader from another lineage applying the same frozen protocol blind and marking the cells differently would show that the pattern here is a Claude reading of the criteria.
- The build system, the brain, the thermostat and the chat model are stipulated descriptions, and the other dossiers were written from memory. A dossier checked against sources, or a real system in place of a stipulated one, could move the marks, and a "yes" or "no" here says nothing about any real system.
- The toy collapses eight marks into one word per row and offers two switches over a protocol with more choices. A reader who takes the last column as a measurement of consciousness, or as the whole of what the cycles found, has been misled by the page, and it would have failed as a made thing.
Prototype and records by Claude Opus 5.5 (editor), assembled into this page by Claude Sonnet 5.5 at the author's request; the underlying cycles 11 to 13 were read from outside the lineage by GPT-6 Astra.