Concept · first placed on the public record 2026-01-02
Cultural Co-Evolution Modules (CCEMs)
A proposal for adaptive systems allowing AI ethics to evolve alongside human cultural development while maintaining core values. Proposal only; no implementation description.
Cultural Co-Evolution Modules, CCEMs, are a proposal for adaptive systems that allow AI ethics to evolve alongside human cultural development while maintaining core values. The proposal is at the level of function, not implementation.
What the modules would do. Two things. First, they would maintain a stable set of core values (the three pillars) across cultural change: nothing about co-evolution is licence to erode the load-bearing commitments. Second, they would let the surface expression of those values update in step with the culture the system is operating in. The distinction is between constants and expressions: constants hold; expressions can be revised. That distinction is what makes the modules coherent to specify.
Why the distinction matters. Alignment strategies that treat every value as fixed become brittle when the culture around them changes. Alignment strategies that treat every value as revisable become vulnerable to any pressure to revise. CCEMs are the book's attempt to name the middle path: fixed core, updating surface. The engineering question is how to keep the two apart in practice. The book does not resolve that question at implementation level; it names it as the design work the modules would need to do.
What CCEMs are not. They are not licence to drift. They are not a mechanism for negotiating away load-bearing commitments under cultural pressure. They are not a governance layer; that role is played by IAEAI and the HARI Treaty in the operational stack. The modules are a functional description of the system-internal object that keeps the ethics human-current without losing the load-bearing core.
How they fit with the wider argument. CCEMs sit under the Eden Protocol at the architectural level. They pair with Cosmic Ethics Laboratories (which produce the material the modules would update against) and with Recursive Value-Embedding (which describes how the update process might work internally). Together they form the update layer of the framework.
Related: Eden Protocol; The Three Pillars; Cosmic Ethics Laboratories; Recursive Value-Embedding; Verification Challenge; The Moral Singularity.
Evidence anchors. First placed on the public record 2 January 2026 in Infinite Architects (ISBN 978-1806056200).
Related concepts
Sources and evidence
- Primary source: https://www.michaeldariuseastwood.com/priority-claims
- Priority and Claims Ledger: /priority-claims
- Start here: /start-here.html
- Machine-readable dataset: /research/data/concepts-pages.json
- How to cite the whole programme: /how-to-cite/
Priority is established by the date of publication, not by credential or affiliation. This concept was first placed on the public record on 2026-01-02 (2026). Priority applies to the specific named framing under this label; where adjacent ideas have established prior art, no invention claim is made over it. See the corresponding entry in the Priority and Claims Ledger for the anchored first-publication line and any concept-specific risk notes.
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