Hongju Pae

Hongju Pae

This paper proposes a minimal architecture for body-grounded perspective formation in artificial agents. Extending prior work, the model introduces an interoceptive viability signal, a Fisher-style metric over fused exteroceptive-interoceptive states, and a conative alignment mechanism linking bodily tendency to action readiness. In a reward-free gridworld, conation converts learned bodily tendency into stable body-directed behavior, while body-to-perspective routing allows bodily perturbations to leave a recoverable geometric residue in the perspective latent. This study shows how minimal structural conditions for artificial subjectivity can be operationalized in the phenomenological sense, through the embodied organization of how a world is given to an agent.

Hongju Pae

What kind of internal organization would allow an artificial agent not only to adapt its behavior, but to sustain a history-sensitive perspective on its world? I present a minimal architecture in which a slow perspective latent $g$ feeds back into perception and is itself updated through perceptual processing. This allows identical observations to be encoded differently depending on the agent's accumulated stance. The model is evaluated in a minimal gridworld with a fixed spatial scaffold and sensory perturbations. Across analyses, three results emerge: first, perturbation history leaves measurable residue in adaptive plasticity after nominal conditions are restored. Second, the perspective latent reorganizes perceptual encoding, such that identical observations are represented differently depending on prior experience. Third, only adaptive self-modulation yields the characteristic growth-then-stabilization dynamic, unlike rigid or always-open update regimes. Gross behavior remains stable throughout, suggesting that the dominant reorganization is perceptual rather than behavioral. Together, these findings identify a minimal mechanism for history-dependent perspectival organization in artificial agents.

Hongju Pae

This study operationalizes subjective perspective in artificial agents by grounding it in a minimal, phenomenologically motivated internal structure. The perspective is implemented as a slowly evolving global latent state that modulates fast policy dynamics without being directly optimized for behavioral consequences. In a reward-free environment with regime shifts, this latent structure exhibits direction-dependent hysteresis, while policy-level behavior remains comparatively reactive. I argue that such hysteresis constitutes a measurable signature of perspective-like subjectivity in machine systems.