Icarus

A model that can build upon itself

Icarus began with a question about growth: could new abilities become part of a model while earlier abilities remained available?

A useful discovery can create opportunities for further learning. Something newly encountered may extend an existing relationship, contribute another answer or reveal a question worth investigating.

We built Icarus to explore how these developments could contribute to one model over time. The research brings together learning, retention and the connections between different abilities, investigating how each can support the others.

Its subject is continuity: development that builds upon what the model has already established.

Adding something new

Early experiments examined this through deliberately constructed teaching examples, allowing the effects of a new lesson to be checked precisely.

In one recorded test, Icarus accepted a new lesson and returned the expected answer when asked about it.

The previously supported answers checked in that experiment remained intact, alongside the newly introduced answer.

The result provided a concrete example of the kind of growth the research was seeking: adding something useful while preserving the earlier abilities checked in the experiment.

The model could gain a new answer and retain the answers already established.

Keeping answers connected to what has been learnt

The experiments also examined how Icarus handled questions that its teaching material did not support.

In the same test, the unsupported and false examples checked were rejected. The new lesson expanded the tested answers while those response boundaries were preserved.

Together, the checks connected three aspects of development: accepting new information, preserving earlier answers and maintaining the distinction between supported and unsupported responses.

These checks make it possible to study growth through its consequences for the model's behaviour: what it can add, what it retains and how it responds when support is absent.

Connecting abilities

Icarus also investigates what becomes possible when separately developed abilities work together.

The research examines how retained information, new teaching and the use of established relationships can contribute to a continuing experience. Its experiments provide a setting in which those interactions can be seen and compared.

This matters because development involves more than accumulating individual answers. Icarus studies how an earlier ability stays useful as another is added, and how their relationship creates opportunities for further progress.

The research ahead

Icarus continues to explore how learning and retention can develop together across richer information and more demanding situations.

These results provide a foundation for that work: a demonstrated addition, preserved earlier answers and a clear account of the responses supported by the teaching material.

Icarus takes this forward to a model whose growing abilities contribute to what it can encounter, learn and do next.

Adding to what is known. Preserving what remains useful. Building toward further understanding.