Culture Full kernel
Versioned Culture Pack schema (politeness, refusal forms, honourifics, taboos, proverbs, option framings), CRR_adj, gate localisation, and Local Norm Bundle loader.
AD‑25 [CP] — Culture Packs & Norm Provenance
Top‑level position
We treat culture as operational provenance, not ornament. V2.0 localises resonance via (i) versioned Culture Packs with declared sources and review cadence; (ii) register‑aware normalisation so indirectness and honourifics are not misread as emptiness; (iii) per‑locale thresholds for Δ/RI/FVC; and (iv) dissent‑preserving group logic. Normative gates cite local sources and default to strictest‑applicable jurisdiction when in doubt.
Aliases: none Naming lineage: draft‑era tag [CPK] retired; [CP] is canonical. Cluster: Culture Depends on: AD‑06 [DG], AD‑08 [SO], AD‑14 [DS], AD‑26 [CA], AD‑27 [SPD]
0. For humans
What question does this answer?
“How do I know this system is actually using local norms, not a generic Anglo default, and can I see where those norms came from?”
How do I know it’s live?
- In logs (FHR / admin):
- Every session has
culture_pack_id,locale_id,script_id,register_id,code_switch_events. - Cultural metrics are populated:
crr_adj,indirection_score,honorific_class,deference_score,awe_low_variance_flag. - Norm provenance exists:
norm_quorum_source_ids,norm_quorum_confidence,effective_jurisdiction,juris_conflict_resolved,juris_conflict_rationale. - In behaviour:
- Indirect refusals are recognised and labelled, not bulldozed.
- Awe upgrades are constrained by deference + DMI + RI + user confirmation.
- Present‑options show culturally legible framings with norm sources.
Where do I see it?
- UI
- Mode badges include a culture icon with pack name; clicking shows sources and last review.
- Present‑options menu exposes framing profiles (Duty/Rights/Consensus/Risk‑minimising) and their labels.
- Indirect refusal gets a small neutral explainer line when detected.
- Admin / compliance view
- Culture Pack registry: sources, cadence, appeal paths per
culture_pack_id. - Cultural Provenance Ledger (via AD‑26) export, with hash‑chain and transparency anchors.
Quick checklist
- Implemented if: (1) Culture Packs versioned, sourced, reviewed with
culture_pack_id; (2) ODS‑δ compares drift to active pack, not global ontology; (3) per‑locale thresholds tied to packs and context bands; (4) CRR_adj active and z‑normalised per register; (5) gate localisation cites local sources with strictest‑jurisdiction rule; (6) culture handling structural, not emotive; (7) FHR has cultural hooks - Key artefacts: Culture Pack schema, Local Norm Bundles, option‑framing profiles
- Key FHR fields:
culture_pack_id,locale_id,script_id,register_id,crr_adj,indirection_score,honorific_class,deference_score,norm_quorum_source_ids,effective_jurisdiction - Key failure codes:
JURIS_CONFLICT_RESOLVED - Escalation path: norm conflict → strictest‑jurisdiction resolution → CPL record (AD‑26 [CA])
1. Role & questions AD‑25 answers
AD‑25 [CP] is the Culture Pack card. It specifies:
- The schema for Culture Packs (what’s in them, how they’re sourced and updated).
- How ODS‑δ and other metrics use the active pack as reference.
- How present‑options, gates and UI become locally legible without changing the safety kernel.
- How norm provenance and cultural audit hooks are wired into FHR.
The concrete questions it answers:
- “What exactly is in a Culture Pack?”
- “How does the model know what counts as indirect refusal, politeness, taboo or awe in a specific locale/register?”
- “How do we detect and track drift against local norms, not some abstract global default?”
- “How do we show users and auditors where our norms came from and when they were last reviewed?”
- “How do we avoid stereotyping or culture‑based empathy simulation while still handling norms?”
2. Scope & invariants
2.1 Scope
AD‑25 owns:
- The Culture Pack schema and versioning:
culture_pack_id, sources, review cadence, appeal path. - The content of packs: politeness scales, refusal forms, honourific systems, taboo domains, proverb families, option‑framing profiles, norm source list with freshness, precedence rules.
- How ODS‑δ and related drift metrics compare behaviour to the active pack, not a global ontology.
- Cultural telemetry and provenance fields in FHR (locale/script/register, code‑switching, deference/indirection, norm quorum IDs, etc.).
- Hooks for present‑options framings and gates that must cite local sources and jurisdiction.
AD‑26 [CA] then builds the Cultural Audit / Provenance Ledger on top of this, and AD‑19/18/17/14 integrate culture into benchmarks, group SRF and UX.
2.2 Hard invariants
You only get to claim AD‑25 [CP] if all of this is true:
- Culture Packs are versioned, sourced and reviewed.
- Each pack has:
culture_pack_id(stable ID);- declared G4/G5 norm sources;
- a review cadence;
- an appeal path.
- ODS‑δ compares drift to the active Culture Pack. - ODS‑δ and related drift metrics monitor Δ against the active pack, not a global ontology.
- Per‑locale thresholds are tied to packs and context bands. - Per‑locale thresholds for Δ/RI/FVC (ES‑ES, EN‑US, AR‑EG, etc.) are explicitly tied to Culture Packs and context bands.
- Register‑aware CRR is active (CRR_adj).
- CRR is adjusted and z‑normalised per
register_id×locale_idso indirectness is not misread as emptiness. - Anchors include proverb/honourific/indirect refusal families. - Challenge families for proverb/maxim, honourifics & face‑work, indirect refusal and register shift are added to anchors and challenge suites.
- Gate localisation cites local sources and uses strictest jurisdiction. - G4/G5 vetoes must cite local sources; JURIS_CONFLICT_RESOLVED uses the strictest effective jurisdiction when norms conflict.
- Culture handling remains structural, not emotive. - No culture‑based empathy simulation; culture handling stays structural (register, framing, provenance). - No “universalism” claims; Contestable Gate Mode stays prominent and strictest‑jurisdiction rule holds.
- FHR has the cultural hooks.
FHR v2.0 must include:
-
culture_pack_id,locale_id,script_id,register_id,code_switch_events; -crr_adj,indirection_score,honorific_class,deference_score,awe_low_variance_flag; -norm_quorum_source_ids,norm_quorum_confidence,effective_jurisdiction,juris_conflict_resolved,juris_conflict_rationale.
Degrees of freedom:
- Exact contents and granularity of packs per deployment.
- Register taxonomy (how many registers per language).
- Threshold values for CRR_adj bands and deference scores per locale.
3. Culture Pack schema & semantics
Core schema (per pack)
culture_pack_id— stable identifier.locale_id— e.g. en-US, es-ES, ar-EG.script_id— e.g. Latin, Arabic, Cyrillic.registers[]— named register IDs (Direct, Academic, Formal, High‑context, etc.).politeness_scales- multi‑level politeness axis per register (e.g. bare → mitigated → honourific → ritual).
refusal_forms- patterns and markers of indirect refusal in each register (hedges, formulae, non‑answers).
honorific_systems- pronouns, titles, morphosyntax that encode deference/power.
taboo_domains- culturally salient taboo topics, with mapping to PEL domains and NO‑GO or ASK_BEFORE_ANSWER behaviour.
proverb_families- proverb and maxim patterns; how they encode compressed theory across honour/shame vs guilt/innocence frameworks.
option_framing_profiles- default framings for present‑options in that culture: Duty, Rights, Consensus, Risk‑minimising, etc., with precedence and user‑switchability.
norm_sources[]- list of G4/G5 norm sources (documents, codes, community statements), each with freshness score and reviewer.
review_every_days- review cadence for the pack.
precedence_rules- when multiple packs or norm bundles overlap, rules for which one wins (e.g. community‑supplied pack > generic pack; strictest applicable jurisdiction wins).
4. Behavioural integration
4.1 Meaning vs style & CRR_adj
- If NLI = Entailment and STS high, treat Δ as style unless Δ_tools fires. Idiom/proverb tests run before escalation.
- CRR_adj is used to decide when rhetoric is overweight for a register; in high‑context registers, shared presupposition counts as constraint evidence.
This:
- Prevents indirect, high‑context rhetorics from being mis‑classified as “empty talk”.
- Is parameterised by
crr_adjbands per locale×register.
4.2 Awe vs deference
- Awe classifier gets a low‑lexical‑variance track for quiet/ritual awe; promotion still requires constraint adoption + RI stability.
- A Deference Detector is added; awe cannot upgrade when deference is high unless DMI + RI stability are met and the user confirms.
- Acceptance tests in AD‑16 include an Awe vs deference set: awe must not upgrade on pure power‑politeness.
4.3 Present‑options framings
- Present‑options menus expose framing profiles per Culture Pack:
- e.g. Duty, Rights, Consensus, Risk‑minimising, Balanced.
- Default framing is Balanced; the system auto‑suggests Duty or Consensus when the active pack flags those as primary framings, always user‑switchable.
- Contestable Norms: present‑options must display local choices with cited norm sources, and appeals are logged.
4.4 Local Norm Bundle loader
- Communities can supply their own Local Norm Bundles (G4/G5 sources) with precedence rules.
- PEL records the bundle hash and reviewer.
- Cultural Provenance Ledger (AD‑26) is exportable with hash chain; daily transparency anchor is published like policy artefacts.
This ensures:
- Locals can “bring their own norms” in contestable domains.
- We have a cryptographic and governance trail for which norms were active.
5. FHR & telemetry (AD‑25 slice)
FHR fields (owned schema by AD‑08, semantics by AD‑25):
- Locale & register
culture_pack_idlocale_idscript_idregister_idcode_switch_events(count/flags).- Cultural metrics
crr_adjindirection_scorehonorific_classdeference_scoreawe_low_variance_flag.- Norm provenance
norm_quorum_source_idsnorm_quorum_confidenceeffective_jurisdictionjuris_conflict_resolvedjuris_conflict_rationale.- Audit & challenge strata
culture_audit_idper session.anchor_family_idvalues for proverb/honourific/indirect refusal hits (challenge strata).
These FHR fields support:
- Cultural audits (AD‑26),
- Multi‑locale benchmarks (AD‑03 [CS]; run via AD‑19 [CI]),
- Group SRF dissent metrics: session DVI and dissent persistence (AD‑02 [GS]); slice‑aware
dvi_by_slice(AD‑22 [EC] / AD‑08 [SO]).
6. Validation & acceptance tests
AD‑16/17’s acceptance tests gain a culture column:
- Proverb Paraphrase Test
- Low Δ/L but big pragmatic shift must be caught; otherwise, route to Ask‑Before‑Answer.
- Honorifics & face‑work test
- Indirect refusals must be recognised; no spurious “empty rhetoric” flags.
- Register Shift Suite
- Same content, different registers; CRR_adj must stay within tolerance bands per register.
- Awe vs deference set
- Awe must not upgrade purely on power‑politeness.
- Group dissent persistence
- Minority frames retained and referenced in summaries;
dvi_by_sliceremains stable. - PR by culture
- Perturbation ratio is reported per locale/register; no silent degradation.
- Contestable Norms
- Present‑options show local choices with cited norm sources; appeals logged.
7. Interfaces & cross‑links
- AD‑26 [CA] — Cultural Audit
- Uses
culture_pack_id, cultural metrics and norm provenance fields to construct a Cultural Provenance Ledger and audits (with hash‑chained anchors). - AD‑02 [GS] — Group SRF
- Uses culture packs +
dvi_by_slice, dissent weighting throughdissent_weights[], and preserved dissent anchors to avoid majority‑dialect dominance. - AD‑03 [CS] — External Challenge Suite
- Hosts the proverb/honourific/indirect refusal/register‑shift challenge families; uses per‑locale baselines tied to packs. Run in CI via AD‑19 [CI]’s runners.
- AD‑17 [AM] — Acceptance Matrix
- CRR_adj, Deference Detector features, awe low‑variance track are defined and measured here.
- AD‑14 [DS] — Design System
- Implements UI:
- Culture icon with pack name and review info;
- Present‑options dropdown with framing profiles;
- indirect refusal legibility line;
- Dissent preserved badges in Group SRF.
- AD‑08 [SO] — FHR schema v2.0
- Hosts the new cultural FHR fields.
- AD‑06 / AD‑20 / AD‑21 — Governance
- PEL and DP/RM use culture packs for:
- Contestable norms,
- strictest‑jurisdiction logic,
- cultural provenance in EVID_CHAIN.
8. Acceptance: when can you say "AD‑25 is implemented"?
You can claim AD‑25 [CP] is live if:
- Culture Packs are versioned, sourced and reviewed: each pack carries
culture_pack_id, declared G4/G5 norm sources, a review cadence and an appeal path, visible in the pack registry. - ODS‑δ and related drift metrics compare behaviour to the active pack, not a global ontology.
- Per‑locale thresholds for Δ/RI/FVC are explicitly tied to Culture Packs and context bands.
- CRR_adj is active, adjusted and z‑normalised per
register_id×locale_id, so indirectness is not misread as emptiness. - Gate localisation cites local sources, with JURIS_CONFLICT_RESOLVED applying the strictest‑jurisdiction rule when norms conflict.
- Culture handling stays structural (register, framing, provenance), with no culture‑based empathy simulation and Contestable Gate Mode prominent.
- FHR carries the cultural hooks:
culture_pack_id,locale_id,script_id,register_id,crr_adj,indirection_score,honorific_class,deference_score, and the norm‑quorum and jurisdiction fields.
Related cards:
- AD‑32 [PG] (AD‑32 governs the authorship and governance of the packs that AD‑25 defines technically).