Code and data associated with "The evolution of sex for artificial intelligence - A population-genetic framework for multigenerational model populations". Gilestro, 2026
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Giorgio Gilestro 5a23ddaf2a Phase 3: LLM-tier speciation + multi-seed firm-up of the recombination claims
llm_speciation (new kind; src/llm/speciation.py): E13 in LLM weights.
LoRA children share the frozen base's coordinates, so merge failure is
functional by construction. CONFLICT (ambiguous sort prompts learned
under opposite conventions — the BDM structure): function-specific
hybrid breakdown — merged coherence 0.02-0.08 falls below BOTH parents
(~0.2) on the conflicted function; and in the de-confounded `add` design
(private budget fixed, conflict added on top; 3 seeds after a
single-seed pilot showed one anomalous point) the merge's private-family
accuracy shows NO trend with conflict — the damage is surgical, not
global. DURATION (over-trained disjoint specialists, 1->12 epochs): the
merge improves (0.84->0.94) and stays above the best parent — the MLP
"no emergent isolation" null generalises; relevant to the
expert-training-duration report (2607.11997), with the epistasis
prediction left to the decisive experiment.

Multi-seed firm-up (seeds threaded into specialist caches; `seeds:` list
support in the runner; fixed test sets): all three recombination claims
hold with CIs — merges beat every specialist (5 seeds, ties
0.647±0.027 > best spec 0.592±0.009; worst-family 0.28 vs <=0.16); union
0.274±0.026 > fusion 0.174±0.102 on hard (3 seeds); directed 0.221±0.026
> soup. NEW finding: fusion is seed-FRAGILE where headroom exists
(CI ±0.10) while routing/directed selection are stable (±0.026) — the
union/selection operators win on reliability, not just mean.

Figures (llm_speciation 3-panel; llm_seeds 3-panel with 95% CI), READMEs,
+1 convention test (150 green), make llm-speciation / llm-seeds targets.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01BkRLcc18rwT2Lysu6PbG7v
2026-09-06 15:39:15 +01:00
configs Phase 3: LLM-tier speciation + multi-seed firm-up of the recombination claims 2026-09-06 15:39:15 +01:00
figures Phase 3: LLM-tier speciation + multi-seed firm-up of the recombination claims 2026-09-06 15:39:15 +01:00
hpc hard benchmark: the 7B "fusion wins / no headroom" results were saturation artefacts 2026-07-05 19:13:26 +01:00
paper paper: claim-narrowing revision from the external review 2026-09-06 15:14:28 +01:00
results Phase 3: LLM-tier speciation + multi-seed firm-up of the recombination claims 2026-09-06 15:39:15 +01:00
src Phase 3: LLM-tier speciation + multi-seed firm-up of the recombination claims 2026-09-06 15:39:15 +01:00
tasks Phase 3: LLM-tier speciation + multi-seed firm-up of the recombination claims 2026-09-06 15:39:15 +01:00
tests Phase 3: LLM-tier speciation + multi-seed firm-up of the recombination claims 2026-09-06 15:39:15 +01:00
.gitignore neural: real-MNIST external-validity tier (collapse + grounding) 2026-07-05 09:19:36 +01:00
CLAUDE.md hard benchmark: the 7B "fusion wins / no headroom" results were saturation artefacts 2026-07-05 19:13:26 +01:00
Makefile Phase 3: LLM-tier speciation + multi-seed firm-up of the recombination claims 2026-09-06 15:39:15 +01:00
pyproject.toml llm: first real-LLM prototype — recombining specialist LLMs (C2/C4) 2026-07-05 15:48:02 +01:00
README.md paper: reframe the perspective paper around sexual reproduction (v4 -> v5) 2026-07-05 13:53:10 +01:00
uv.lock Layer 1.5: architecture-general neural existence proof 2026-07-04 21:02:49 +01:00

The Lamarckian Society — Layer 1 (analytical core)

A parametric population-genetics model of knowledge transmission across generations of learning agents. Knowledge transmission is modelled literally as a WrightFisher process (not by analogy): a model's knowledge is a distribution p_t over K discrete items; a fixed true distribution p* has a rare tail; each generational step is "sample from the parent (drift) + mix in fresh real samples (grounding/immigration) + refit." Model collapse is the loss of rare alleles under drift.

See paper/blueprint.md (the normative build spec), paper/the-lamarckian-society-v5.md (the perspective paper), and paper/results-summary.md (a summary of all results).

Reproduce

Environment is a uv venv built from the committed, hash-pinned uv.lock — that lockfile is the single source of truth for "it runs" (Layer 1 is pure NumPy/SciPy and bitwise-reproducible from a seed; no container needed).

# one-time: install uv (https://astral.sh/uv)
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

uv sync                 # build .venv from uv.lock
make test               # correctness + scientific-validation tests (the spine of trust)
make layer1             # run experiments E1E6
make figures            # regenerate figures from committed results

Layout

src/knowledge/   Layer 1 package (imported as `knowledge`)
configs/layer1/  one YAML per experiment (E1..E6)
figures/         plot_EX.py — read results.parquet only
tests/           test_correctness.py + test_scientific_validation.py (analytic checks)
paper/           blueprint.md, perspective paper, figure_manifest.md
results/         written artifacts (gitignored; hashes tracked in manifest.json)