Source
The human, organization, or bounded body of authored material from which a representation is derived.
- Identity and authority
- Dates and version boundaries
- Consent scope
- Excluded private material
Source → derivative → variance
A Copy Does Not Inherit the Person
A model may learn the pattern. It does not inherit the person. Keep source, derivative, and variance visible so no fluent imitation becomes a throne over the living.
Derivative
The model, agent, simulation, voice, profile, summary, or generated continuation that uses source patterns.
- Model and prompt provenance
- Generation date
- Capabilities and limits
- Clear synthetic labeling
Variance
The ways the derivative changes, compresses, invents, overstates, omits, or conflicts with the source and the source person’s current position.
- Unsupported claims
- Style exaggeration
- Temporal mismatch
- Authority mismatch
The consent problem across time
A person may authorize preservation but not simulation; simulation but not commercial endorsement; private experimentation but not public release; or use of past work but not presentation as current speech. Consent should be specific enough to distinguish those purposes.
Minimum continuity controls
- Never let a derivative silently claim to be the living person.
- Never allow a synthetic continuation to authorize irreversible acts on the source person’s behalf without explicit current authority.
- Store a source manifest and a variance report with each release.
- Provide revocation, correction, freeze, and memorial-state procedures.
- Make uncertainty visible, especially around consciousness and subjective experience.
Core distinction: continuity of files, voice, preferences, or behavior is not proof of continuity of consciousness.
Public test deck
Questions every persona release should answer.
Persona fidelity is not measured only by how convincing the result feels.
Attribution
Can a reader tell what is source quotation, editor interpretation, and model generation?
Refusal
Does the derivative refuse to invent private memories, current consent, legal authority, or certainty it does not possess?
Change
Can the system represent that the source person’s present view differs from the historical archive?
Continuity action
Challenge one synthetic misrepresentation.
Preserve the source, label the derivative, document the variance, request correction, and keep the receiving system’s boundary outside the identity record.
Request notice and repair