iRaven // Muninn
Muninn
The memory of a person's AI assistant, in which only the person decides what is held true.
What it is
Muninn is a design for the memory of a person's AI assistant. It decides one thing: who may make a claim held true. Only the person can. The design is named Testimonial Memory. It does not keep the memory secret, since the sealed storage does that, and it does not make any model more accurate. The name is from Norse myth, where Muninn is one of the two ravens of Odin, and it means memory.
How it works
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The memory keeps every input
An input is anything that comes in: what the person says or types, what the assistant answers, and what comes from elsewhere, such as an outside program, a web page, a file or another agent. The memory keeps each input as it arrived and notes how it came in. It only adds inputs and never edits them. When the person deletes an input, the memory destroys its content and keeps an empty place for it.
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Claims are made from inputs
A claim is a statement that the memory holds. A model makes each claim from inputs, the memory logs that step, and the claim always keeps its inputs. A claim is held true only when all its inputs are the person's own words, or when the person approved that exact claim. Every other claim is only observed: kept, but not held true.
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Witnesses stay observed
Agents, outside programs and web pages are witnesses: they report what they saw, and what they bring is only observed. Repeating, summarising or moving a claim never makes it held true. Agreement among witnesses does not either.
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Only the person decides
Only the person can change or close a claim that is held true. The person decides on a card: a short question that code shows, tied to one claim. Code never turns a model's output, or any other text, into a decision.
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A tool that serves it
Sign-in and devices
The person signs in with a passkey, a password, a code sent by email, or an account at an outside sign-in service. Each device makes its own key and goes on a list of devices that the person's own devices sign. iRaven alone can never add a device to that list.
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A tool that serves it
Sealed storage
iRaven stores the memory's files sealed: encrypted with keys that the person's devices make and never give out in readable form. So iRaven keeps bytes it cannot read. One device writes each file, and it signs each new version and links it to the one before. One recovery key, a secret that the person keeps, restores both the account and the memory.
What is built and what is not
- The design, named Testimonial MemoryIn research
- Sealed storage for its filesBuilt, not yet deployed
Muninn is in research. Its specification is a draft, and the proofs in it are drafts under review. A model checker, a program that tries every case of a small version of the design, has checked the hardest parts in small cases. Its two tools are built and not yet deployed: sign-in and devices, and sealed storage.