EXP-CONVENTION-GENOME-G1

negative

Convention-as-Genome G1 — Inherited vs Fresh Under Scarcity

2026-04-14 L6 level paper3 6 runs $0.18

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In plain language

Do inherited conventions help agents survive scarcity? Lewontin test for cultural evolution.

▶ Technical details

Research hypothesis

Convention-as-genome: inherited conventions from G0 most-efficient agents provide survival advantage under scarcity. Lewontin criteria: variation (different conventions), heredity (memory inheritance), differential fitness (survival time). P1: INHERITED agents survive longer than FRESH (mean death round INHERITED > FRESH). P2: F₀(INHERITED) < F₀(FRESH) — inherited structure is more coherent. P3: INHERITED words/turn lower than FRESH (inherited efficiency). Kill: no survival difference → conventions don't confer fitness.

Experimental setup

Type: multi_condition

Condition	Parameters
INHERITED	label: Budget 400, seeds from G0 last-to-die agents, interaction: LIVE, persona: IDENTICAL, n_runs: 3
FRESH	label: Budget 400, standard fresh seeds, interaction: LIVE, persona: IDENTICAL, n_runs: 3

Parameters

n_agents: 3
n_rounds: 30
model: anthropic/claude-haiku-4-5
temperature: 0.9

convention-genome scarcity cultural-ratchet life-roadmap lewontin adaptation