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P98 — AIEP — Swarm Contribution Weighting by Node Governance Certification and Historical Divergence Record

Publication Date: 2026-03-01 Status: Open Source Prior Art Disclosure Licence: Apache License 2.0 Author/Organisation: Phatfella Ltd Schema: AIEP_OS_SPEC_TEMPLATE v1.0.1 — https://aiep.dev/schemas/aiep-os-spec-template/v1.0.1

Framework Context

[0001] This disclosure operates within an Architected Instruction and Evidence Protocol (AIEP) environment as defined in United Kingdom patent application number GB2519711.2, filed 20 November 2025; GB2519826.8, filed 20 November 2025; and GB2519803.7, filed 20 November 2025, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

[0002] The present disclosure extends swarm governance and hardware attestation mechanisms defined in the AIEP environment while remaining independently implementable as described herein.

Field of the Disclosure

[0003] This disclosure relates to governed distributed reasoning systems.

[0004] More particularly, the disclosure concerns a deterministic mechanism within an AIEP swarm substrate for computing a NodeContributionWeight for each participating node as a function of the node’s governance chip certification status, its historical evidence substrate quality, and its cross-session divergence record, and applying this weight to scale each node’s contribution to GlobalDominanceState computation.

Background

[0005] In a distributed AIEP swarm, nodes contribute LocalDominanceHash values aggregated to compute GlobalDominanceState. In prior swarm specifications, nodes contribute equally to GlobalDominanceState aggregation.

[0006] Equal contribution weighting does not account for differences in node trustworthiness, governance integrity, or evidence substrate quality. A node operating without a certified governance chip, with a degraded evidence substrate, or with a history of systematic divergence from subsequently validated conclusions should contribute less to swarm consensus than a certified, high-quality, historically accurate node.

[0007] Existing systems do not provide: computation of a NodeContributionWeight as a deterministic function of governance chip certification status, evidence substrate quality, and historical divergence accuracy; application of NodeContributionWeight as a scaling factor in GlobalDominanceState aggregation; a NodeGovernanceCertificationRecord cryptographically binding certification to swarm identity; a HistoricalDivergenceAccuracyScore from the proportion of historical minority positions subsequently validated; or fail-closed exclusion when NodeContributionWeight falls below a schema-defined minimum.

Summary of the Disclosure

[0008] A NodeContributionWeight is computed for each participating node as:

NodeContributionWeight = w_g × GovernanceCertificationScore
                       + w_e × EvidenceSubstrateQualityScore
                       + w_h × HistoricalDivergenceAccuracyScore

where w_g, w_e, w_h are schema-defined version-bound weighting coefficients.

[0009] GovernanceCertificationScore is derived from the node’s governance chip attestation: attestation_freshness (decaying score reflecting recency of last verified attestation), firmware_compliance (binary: current schema-compliant firmware), and enclave_integrity (binary: hardware isolation enclave integrity passed). A node without a governance chip attestation record receives GovernanceCertificationScore = 0.0 and is excluded from hardware-attested consensus pools.

[0010] EvidenceSubstrateQualityScore is derived from Evidence Ledger quality characteristics: hash_chain_completeness (proportion of entries with unbroken hash-chain linkage), schema_version_currency (proportion carrying current schema version), and provenance_coverage (normalised distribution breadth of provenance_type classifications).

[0011] HistoricalDivergenceAccuracyScore is computed from the node’s minority position history: the proportion of minority positions that were subsequently validated — defined as the minority branch crossing the ReactivationThreshold or parent swarm dominance threshold within a schema-defined ValidationWindow — over the most recent HistoryWindow evaluation cycles. A node with no minority position history receives the schema-defined NeutralScore (default 0.5).

[0012] NodeContributionWeight is applied by scaling each node’s LocalDominanceHash influence: WeightedContribution_n = NodeContributionWeight_n × LocalDominanceScore_n. GlobalDominanceState is computed from the sum of WeightedContributions normalised by the sum of NodeContributionWeights.

[0013] A NodeContributionWeightRecord is maintained per node as an append-only record comprising NodeContributionWeight, all three component scores, and a WeightComputationHash = H(GovernanceCertificationScore ‖ EvidenceSubstrateQualityScore ‖ HistoricalDivergenceAccuracyScore ‖ w_g ‖ w_e ‖ w_h ‖ SchemaVersionId).

[0014] If NodeContributionWeight falls below the schema-defined MinimumContributionThreshold, the node is excluded fail-closed from swarm participation. An ExclusionRecord is appended to the parent swarm ledger. The excluded node may re-qualify by restoring component scores and receiving re-attestation.

Licence

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the “License”); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an “AS IS” BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.