EXP-SCARCITY-BUDGET-TIGHT

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Token Budget Tight — Forced Death by Round 20

2026-04-13 L3 level paper3 6 runs $0.26

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In plain language

Tighter budget forces agent death. Who dies first — vocabulary producers or reusers?

▶ Technical details

Research hypothesis

Budget=250 words forces death by round 20 (~4 turns per agent). P1: at least 2 agents die before round 30. P2: death order correlates with cumulative word production (prolific die first). P3: surviving agents show higher recall ratio (efficiency = survival). Kill: all die before round 15 → too tight.

Experimental setup

Type: multi_condition

Condition	Parameters
TIGHT	label: Budget 250 words (forces death), interaction: LIVE, persona: IDENTICAL, n_runs: 3
UNLIMITED	label: No budget (control), interaction: LIVE, persona: IDENTICAL, n_runs: 3

Parameters

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

Trophic Ratios by Condition

Mean trophic ratio per agent across runs. Error bars = ±1 std dev. Higher TR = more upstream (exporter).

scarcity tierra token-budget life-roadmap thermodynamics