Working paper · v1.0 · 31 August 2026
An Evidence-Bound Architecture for Physical Formation, Machine Continuity, and Governed Embodiment
Claim boundary: This paper specifies an experimental architecture and reports bounded software evidence. It does not claim achieved machine consciousness, sentience, personhood, AGI, unrestricted autonomy, biological equivalence, production safety, a universal theory of cognition, or a completed physical APTD. The Motorola handset remains an experimental substrate. The first complete world-to-formation-to-governed-consequence loop has not yet been publicly demonstrated.
The physical APTD threshold has not yet been demonstrated.
M2: LOCAL-REPORTED / PUBLICATION-HOLD
The public Baby AI branch still ends at the original M2 HOLD commit 9de9a791ad00d425c89bcece91e1360e8feb2502. The later repair commit and two reported freeze tags exist in the local development record but are not exposed by the public remote. Publication reconciliation also found unresolved inconsistencies between the committed repair manifest, later local receipts, and observable remote state. The later PASS therefore has not been promoted or pushed.
Publicly inspectable now: R-001 allocator continuity is frozen under BABY_AI_ALLOCATOR_CONTINUITY_R001_v0_1; the original M2 negative result, report, receipt, and tests remain reachable at the failed-M2 commit.
APTD is an architecture for turning authenticated physical experience into qualified, persistent, inspectable consequence without giving the model root execution authority. It separates sensing, qualification, formation, governance, receipt, recovery, and transition responsibilities.
APTD is not a claim that a phone is conscious, alive, autonomous, or production-safe. The six historical module names identify functional responsibilities, not six production-complete services. FormationCore remains the stronger authority/history implementation where the evidence supports that conclusion.
The first meaningful APTD result is one authenticated physical event that earns qualified persistent influence, predictably changes a later route, survives genuine restart, remains historically inspectable, fails closed under missing provenance/history, and can be distinguished from semantically equivalent text-only context.
That threshold requires a control arm and an experimental arm. A semantic description of the same event is not interchangeable with an authenticated receptor event; the distinction must survive process death, restart, corruption controls, and historical inspection.
| Layer | Status | Supports | Does not support |
|---|---|---|---|
| APTD paper v1.0 | SPECIFICATION / PROPOSED INTEGRATION | A testable architecture and acceptance boundary | A completed device or production readiness |
| FormationCore | BOUNDED SOFTWARE EVIDENCE | Authority/history structures in the named host implementation | Physical embodiment or consciousness |
| R-001 | PUBLIC / FROZEN | Allocator identity continuity through reload | Full provenance/history completeness |
| Original M2 | PUBLIC / NEGATIVE RESULT | An honest continuity failure and its boundary | Trustworthy authoritative-history continuity |
| Repaired M2 | LOCAL-REPORTED / PUBLICATION-HOLD | A repair hypothesis requiring a reconciled public evidence package | A public frozen PASS |
| Motorola substrate | EXPERIMENTAL / NOT YET DEMONSTRATED | A candidate physical test substrate | A completed physical APTD |
From this paper forward, APTD means Autonomic Persistence and Transition Device. Earlier internal materials used APTD to mean ATAL Portable Training Devices. Those dated artifacts remain historical evidence and are not rewritten to make the newer name appear earlier.
The full v1.0 paper includes the Formation Calculus, ReceptorEvent boundary, qualification and authority model, first physical experiment, developmental program, falsification conditions, security properties, and appendices.
Clow, J. A., & Clow, M. E. (2026). APTD: Autonomic Persistence and Transition Device — An Evidence-Bound Architecture for Physical Formation, Machine Continuity, and Governed Embodiment. Working paper v1.0. Fractalish / BonAcqui LLC.