What is the ARC and Eden research programme?
The ARC and Eden research programme is Michael Darius Eastwood's programme in Recursive Dynamics, the field he founded for studying how self-improving systems grow, correct and persist. It asks whether correction can keep pace with AI that improves itself, and joins the ARC Theory, the Eden Protocol, registered studies and working tools, each result graded at its own strength.
Text reviewed 2026-10-31. Any earlier audio edition may differ; the dated text and linked records govern.
The ARC Theory supplies the hypotheses: five laws under test, carried by the theory-level registration (DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/P8CKQ), registered on 8 September 2026 and now at version 1.104 of 29 October 2026. Its twenty-two propositions are severable, so a failure in one does not spread to the rest. The Eden Protocol is the engineering: correction built into a system's reasoning rather than applied only to its finished output.
The deciding study designs are written, dated and prepared as draft registrations awaiting human submission, except three registered on OSF: Unit 06, registered on 1 October 2026 (DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/RV2B5) and run; Unit 83, registered on 22 October 2026 (DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/MN73W) and run, with its verdict on P21 (results: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/98HKR); and Unit 82, registered on 27 October 2026 (DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/JUFG4). Unit 06 is reported as administratively incomplete, with no verdict. Unit 83 supports P21 under the registered test, by the programme's own run, on the access axis, family-dependent, with its mechanism axis not evaluable and one call retried under a disclosed recovery amendment. Unit 82 has not yet run.
The theory has working tools and a first registered result beside it: Eden Control and Eden Legal AI, both in private beta; the ARC Evaluation Protocol, in development; and Unit 83, the first registered study to reach a verdict. Each paper has its own DOI on the Open Science Framework, under the programme DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/6C5XB. The papers are free to read and reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. The study code and data published with them are open to inspection, all rights reserved.
The book, Infinite Architects, sets out the wider argument. Its first edition is dated evidence of what he printed on 2 January 2026, and the papers supersede it wherever they differ.