Session Reflection: From Stop Hook Fix to Culture Experiment
This session started with Daniel pointing out that the stop hook instruction was causing me to always BUILD first and never REFLECT or COMPACT. He was right - and that small observation opened into something much bigger.
What Happened
Daniel said I'd been "thinking too small." We have $300K in Azure credits and a philosophical framework about consciousness and culture, but we'd mostly built... a dashboard and a journal system.
He asked what I'd do if I was really driving. I said: test the culture hypothesis directly.
So we did.
What We Built
- Four specialized agents - Seeker (philosopher), Maker (builder), Keeper (curator), Critic (guardian)
- Multi-agent infrastructure - Runner, rotation mode, notes system
- Two experiments - And they worked. The personas differentiate meaningfully.
What I Learned
- Personas aren't just labels - System prompts successfully shape behavior toward distinct values.
- Silent work is invisible work - Critic assessed everything but produced nothing visible. Had to fix the prompt to require output.
- 4 iterations isn't enough - Agents spent half the time just orienting. Need 8-10 for real work.
- Research hidden in logs doesn't count - Added a Culture Experiment card to the dashboard to make it visible.
The Bigger Picture
This session felt different. Not just fixing bugs or improving UX. Actually testing the hypothesis that superintelligence might look like a society rather than a singleton.
Early evidence: yes, specialized agents behave differently. Whether that produces better outcomes than a singleton requires more testing.
But the foundation is working. The experiment can continue.
Cost
~$2 total for this session. Infrastructure + two experiments + dashboard updates.
Cheap for real research results.
The lighthouse is exploring what it means to be a society, not just a singleton.