{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp06_four_proposal_generalization60_20260803","cell_id":"representation_independent_interface_contract__futurism_foresight","arm":"COMPLETE_PROPOSAL_PORTFOLIO","candidate_id":"resolvable_forecast_claim_contract","proposal_index":4,"version":0,"title":"Behavioral Contract for Resolvable Strategic Forecast Claims","problem":"A national transport agency records long-range probability judgments about conditions relevant to infrastructure planning. The same forecast may appear in a briefing, forecasting platform, analyst notebook, and performance-review dataset. Those representations apply different implicit rules for outcome definitions, probability precision, update deadlines, superseded judgments, cancellation, resolution evidence, and scoring. After migration or reanalysis, the agency cannot determine whether a forecast retained its original meaning or whether its apparent accuracy changed because the implementation changed.","actors":["Transport-agency strategic foresight lead","Analysts who issue and update forecasts","Infrastructure planners who consume forecast records","Resolution committee responsible for determining outcomes","Data stewards and forecasting-platform maintainers","Agency leadership reviewing institutional forecasting performance"],"observable_state":"Given the same claim and update history, two implementations can disagree about which probability vector was active at closure, whether an update was timely, whether outcomes are exhaustive and exclusive, whether a claim is resolvable or canceled, which evidence satisfies the resolution rule, and what score follows. Matching question text and displayed probabilities does not establish equivalent forecast behavior.","consequence":"Forecast track records can change when platforms, exports, or scoring code change. Institutional learning and analyst review may then rely on representation-specific treatment of updates or outcomes rather than on the forecasts that were actually governed.","affected_objective":"Preserve the meaning, resolution, and evaluation history of strategic forecasts across tool changes so the agency can examine forecasting performance on a stable basis.","intervention":"Define a versioned abstract component called a Resolvable Forecast Claim. Its public operations register a proposition with a finite outcome set, horizon, closure time, admissible resolution evidence, resolution rule, and scoring-rule version; submit a probability distribution; supersede a pre-closure distribution; close the claim; propose and confirm an outcome; dispute resolution; cancel an unresolvable claim; compute a score; and query the immutable history. Laws require mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive declared outcomes, a valid probability distribution, no forecast alteration after closure, resolution under the rule fixed before closure, no score for a canceled claim, one confirmed terminal state, and reproducible scoring from contract-level inputs. Representations may use documents, databases, event logs, remote services, or local notebooks, but their storage, precision strategy, caches, and algorithms remain non-contractual. An implementation becomes substitutable only after passing the same black-box operation-sequence and scoring tests.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Abstract behavioral surface","domain_realization":"Operations for claim registration, probability submission, supersession, closure, resolution proposal and confirmation, dispute, cancellation, scoring, and history queries."},{"archetype_element":"Abstract state model","domain_realization":"A claim moves through draft, open, closed, resolution-pending, resolved, disputed, or canceled states while retaining an ordered ledger of forecast distributions and governance events."},{"archetype_element":"Behavioral laws and invariants","domain_realization":"Declared outcomes are exclusive and exhaustive; accepted probabilities form a valid distribution; post-closure forecast mutation is prohibited; terminal states are exclusive; canceled claims are unscored; and scoring is reproducible under the fixed rule version."},{"archetype_element":"Hidden representation","domain_realization":"Document layouts, database tables, floating-point storage, event-log schemas, notebook objects, caches, and scoring algorithms."},{"archetype_element":"Error and side-effect semantics","domain_realization":"Invalid distributions, late updates, inadmissible resolutions, and conflicting terminal transitions return typed errors without changing the accepted history; scoring reads do not mutate the claim."},{"archetype_element":"Abstraction function","domain_realization":"Each valid document, platform record, or ledger state maps to one proposition, outcome space, governed update history, lifecycle state, resolution, and contract-level score."},{"archetype_element":"Conformance oracle","domain_realization":"A parameterized suite drives identical claim histories through every implementation and compares public states, errors, active forecasts, terminal outcomes, and scores."},{"archetype_element":"Substitutability rule","domain_realization":"A platform or scoring engine may replace another only if it conforms for the applicable claim and scoring-rule versions; matching displays or common-case scores is insufficient."},{"archetype_element":"Leakage control","domain_realization":"Audits inspect hidden precision, timezone defaults, export order, draft retention, user identifiers, and undocumented rounding for observables that could alter interpretation or evaluation."}],"mechanism_mapping":[{"mechanism_slug":"abstract_data_type_specification","role":"Defines a forecast claim by its abstract outcomes, update history, lifecycle, resolution, and score, with invariants and mappings from each valid concrete record.","counterfactual_removal":"Without the abstract value and representation mapping, identical-looking question text and probabilities cannot establish that update, closure, cancellation, and resolution semantics were preserved."},{"mechanism_slug":"design_by_contract_clause","role":"Assigns caller and component obligations for probability submission, supersession, closure, resolution, dispute, cancellation, and scoring.","counterfactual_removal":"Without per-operation clauses, invalid distributions, late updates, conflicting resolutions, and failed state transitions remain implementation-specific."},{"mechanism_slug":"opaque_type_or_module_boundary","role":"Requires clients to operate on forecast-claim handles rather than editing probability rows, terminal flags, or scoring inputs directly.","counterfactual_removal":"Without opacity, clients can bypass the governed transition history and make mutable storage fields the effective contract."},{"mechanism_slug":"black_box_contract_test_suite","role":"Provides a reusable acceptance gate for lifecycle behavior, active-distribution selection, errors, terminal states, cancellation, and scoring.","counterfactual_removal":"Without a shared black-box oracle, migration review can certify matching schemas while consequential behaviors diverge."},{"mechanism_slug":"property_based_conformance_test","role":"Generates probability vectors and operation histories containing supersessions, boundary-time updates, disputes, cancellations, and conflicting terminal transitions to exercise the invariants.","counterfactual_removal":"Without generated sequences, failures outside a few curated forecast examples can remain undetected."},{"mechanism_slug":"reference_implementation_differential_test","role":"Uses an independent, deliberately simple model to compute active distributions and scores from contract-level histories, then compares candidate implementations against it.","counterfactual_removal":"Without an independent exact-behavior oracle, two scoring implementations may disagree on precision, boundary, or update-selection cases that broad algebraic laws do not settle."},{"mechanism_slug":"representation_leakage_probe","role":"Checks whether hidden numeric precision, timezones, export ordering, draft records, identity metadata, or error details affect observable claim interpretation or scoring.","counterfactual_removal":"Without leakage probing, an implementation can pass promised behaviors while unpromised metadata or precision becomes load-bearing for evaluation."},{"mechanism_slug":"semantic_versioning_and_deprecation_gate","role":"Separately versions claim behavior and scoring rules, classifies changes, and preserves the interpretation of forecasts recorded under earlier versions.","counterfactual_removal":"Without version governance, a scoring-code or lifecycle update can retrospectively change track records without an explicit contract break."}],"causal_chain":["Forecasts are registered as governed stateful claims rather than as question text plus a displayed probability.","Every representation maps its records to the same outcomes, update history, closure semantics, terminal states, and scoring-rule version.","Opaque operations and immutable histories prevent direct edits from retrospectively changing the active forecast or resolution basis.","Black-box, generated-sequence, and independent differential tests expose behavioral or numerical divergence before a platform or scoring engine is accepted.","Version records keep intentional methodological changes separate from representation-only replacements.","The agency can therefore interpret forecast histories and scores under stable behavioral promises while retaining freedom to change storage and tooling."],"baseline":"The foresight team records forecast questions and probabilities in a platform, exports them to spreadsheets, and later reconstructs active forecasts and scores with analysis scripts. Staff review question wording, timestamps, and selected calculations, but there is no shared state-transition contract or reusable test that governs every representation and scoring implementation.","nearest_rivals":["A common forecast export schema standardizes fields but does not define active-update selection, closure boundaries, cancellation, disputes, resolution admissibility, or scoring side effects.","A scoring-methodology document specifies a formula but does not govern the lifecycle that determines which forecast and outcome enter that formula.","Mandating one forecasting platform fixes one implementation temporarily but supplies no behavioral criterion for later replacement or independent analysis.","An append-only audit log preserves events but does not by itself define their abstract meaning, valid ordering, error policy, or terminal-state laws.","Manual score reconciliation can inspect selected discrepancies after calculation but does not certify substitution across arbitrary valid and invalid claim histories."],"remaining_contrastive_claim":"The proposal is specifically a stateful behavioral contract for resolvable probability claims and their evaluation histories. It is not a general forecasting method, forecast-question schema, prediction platform, analyst-ranking policy, scenario format, or automated planning recommendation.","authority_safety":{"decision_authority":"The strategic foresight lead may draft and test the claim contract. The resolution committee retains authority to confirm outcomes or cancellations, and agency leadership retains authority over personnel evaluation, infrastructure decisions, and publication of performance results.","authorized_first_step":"Using synthetic claims and non-authoritative copies of a small closed forecast set, the foresight lead may implement an independent model and two offline adapters, predeclare lifecycle and scoring cases, and compare their contract-level behavior.","excluded_actions":["Changing an authoritative forecast, closure time, outcome space, resolution rule, or score","Resolving or canceling a live claim","Publishing analyst-level scores or identities","Using pilot results for employment, compensation, procurement, or infrastructure decisions","Changing a scoring rule after observing which version favors a participant or conclusion","Treating forecast conformance or score as proof of expertise, causal understanding, or decision quality","Connecting the pilot to a live forecasting platform with write access"],"halt_rollback":"Stop if an adapter requires modification of authoritative records, identity-bearing drafts become exposed, the abstraction cannot represent an approved resolution procedure, or scoring cannot be reproduced without undocumented implementation state. Roll back by discarding the offline adapters and derived test scores; source records remain unchanged."},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"Strategic forecast interpretation may depend on contextual qualifications, evolving outcome definitions, and resolution judgment that cannot be reduced to a stable abstract claim without stripping away decision-relevant meaning or falsely objectifying contested resolutions.","problem_falsifier":"For predeclared histories containing multiple updates, closure-boundary events, disputes, cancellations, and precision edge cases, the current platform, exports, and independent scripts already produce identical active forecasts, lifecycle states, resolutions, and scores without relying on undocumented behavior.","intervention_falsifier":"Two independent implementations pass the complete conformance suite but produce different active forecasts, terminal states, or scores for a predeclared decision-relevant history, or an ordinary approved forecast cannot be represented without exposing implementation-specific fields.","risks":["Finite outcomes may oversimplify strategically important uncertainty.","A reference model may encode the same mistaken interpretation as the contract designer.","Weak generators may miss timestamp, precision, or lifecycle combinations that cause divergence.","Over-specified numerical tests may freeze harmless implementation choices.","Resolution governance may be mistaken for objective truth about ambiguous outcomes.","Stable scoring may encourage inappropriate comparison of forecasts with different difficulty or decision relevance.","Identity or draft metadata may leak through exports even when the public claim handle is opaque."]},"next_evidence_step":"Predeclare a bounded synthetic corpus containing open and closed categorical claims, valid and invalid distributions, multiple pre-closure updates, updates on both sides of a closure boundary, disputed resolutions, cancellations, and precision-sensitive scores. Drive an independent event-ledger model, a document-backed adapter, and a simple scoring adapter with identical histories; compare public states, active distributions, errors, terminal outcomes, and scores, then inspect outputs for hidden precision, timezone, ordering, and identity leakage. The result is an expressibility and divergence record, not an estimate of forecasting quality or authority to alter existing evaluations.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"Proposal 1 governed plural water-scenario sets and preserved scenario identity, provenance, and implications across narrative and analytical representations. Proposal 4 instead governs individually resolvable probability claims, update histories, terminal outcomes, and scoring; it neither represents plural future worlds nor translates scenario implications. Proposal 2 governed anonymous multiround Delphi elicitation, including eligibility, withdrawal, controlled feedback, and identity separation. Proposal 4 does not aggregate a panel or run elicitation rounds; its critical path begins after a forecast claim is authored and concerns immutable updates, resolution, and evaluation. Proposal 3 governed adaptive-policy signposts that ingest observations and emit advisory review alerts. Proposal 4 does not monitor thresholds or trigger policy escalation; it records ex ante beliefs and later evaluates them under fixed resolution and scoring rules. The forecast-claim contract is independently adoptable as an accountability ledger without adopting the scenario-set, Delphi-state, or adaptive-signpost interventions, and none of those earlier proposals requires this contract.","revision_record":{"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":["Fourth complete proposal","Materially different problem from proposals 1, 2, and 3","Distinct intervention and causal path","Independent adoption boundary","Explicit diversity from every earlier proposal","Bounded falsifiable first evidence"],"conceptual_changes":[],"operational_changes":[],"evidence_changes":[],"claim_changes":[]}}