ASCRI investigates friction dynamics in complex systems where competing interests generate structural conflict, formalising the coordination costs that multi-agent systems impose across governance, markets, and cognition.
Game theory assumes agents are already participating. It models what happens after the game begins but says nothing about how agents enter strategic interaction, why payoff structures take certain forms, or what happens when participation itself is refused. The Axiom of Consent addresses the structural layer beneath: the conditions under which optimisation is delegated, and the friction that emerges when those conditions are violated.
The framework introduces a measurable friction function over three kernel variables (alignment, stakes, and entropy) that predicts coordination costs across political, economic, and computational systems. Where traditional models assume equilibria, the Axiom of Consent formalises why some systems never reach them.
Convergence of optimisation targets between principal and agent. When alignment is high, delegation is cheap. When it collapses, friction dominates.
Magnitude of optimisation being delegated. Higher stakes amplify every misalignment. Small disagreements become structural failures when enough is at risk.
Efficiency loss in optimisation transfer. Even perfectly aligned agents lose information in delegation. Entropy is the irreducible cost of coordination.
Each programme applies the consent-friction framework to a different substrate, testing whether the formal machinery generalises.
Consent-holding theory, delegation legitimacy, governance alignment functions.
4 papers Programme IIDerivatives as remedy and poison, the hedging paradox, systemic risk architectures.
3 papers Programme IIIEmpirical friction validation in cryptocurrency markets, event studies, volatility regimes.
4 papers Programme IVIdentity, consciousness, substrates, moral standing, the replicator-optimisation mechanism.
5 papers Programme VMachine learning, AI safety, computational models of cognition, trauma as training failure.
4 papersCore publications that anchor the programme. Full papers are published on dissensus.ai.
Introduces the friction function and the kernel triple (α, σ, ε) as a formal framework for analysing the coordination costs that precede strategic interaction.
Read on dissensus.ai →ROM provides the meta-theory: configurations generating less friction persist longer. Consent-respecting arrangements are dynamical attractors in optimisation space.
Read on dissensus.ai →A multi-moment event study with dependence-robust inference, testing whether cryptocurrency markets distinguish infrastructure failures from regulatory shocks. Empirical evidence for friction dynamics.
Read on dissensus.ai →Applies the consent framework to artificial agents, arguing that stake-holding capacity, not consciousness, grounds political consideration.
Read on dissensus.ai →