83de943cdd
Records the fork for getting words from audio WITHOUT a serving-time learned model: (A) words-as-text, or (B) deterministic formant/phonetic decode + taught vocabulary. Status: Proposed (stub) — deferred, not a committed design. Captures the problem, the 0-param/decode-not-borrow/refuse-over-fabricate/reviewed-growth constraints, and the open questions a full ADR must answer. Exists so the serving path doesn't silently reach for Whisper. Cross-linked from docs/audio_pipeline_overview.md §9.
117 lines
6.3 KiB
Markdown
117 lines
6.3 KiB
Markdown
# ADR-0183: Lawful Audio→Lexeme Path (stub)
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**Status:** Proposed (stub — placeholder to record the fork; not yet a full design)
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**Date:** 2026-05-29
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**Authors:** Joshua M. Shay, Core R&D Engine
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**Domains:** `sensorium/audio/`, `language_packs/`, (future) `generate/`
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**Depends on:** ADR-0013 (Sensorium Protocol), ADR-0181 (Audio Compiler), ADR-0180 (Delta-CRDT substrate)
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**Related:** [`docs/audio_pipeline_overview.md`](../audio_pipeline_overview.md) §9 (teacher boundary), [`docs/plans/audio-compiler-eval-plan.md`](../plans/audio-compiler-eval-plan.md) §4 (teacher policy)
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---
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## 1. Why this ADR exists (context)
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The audio compiler (ADR-0181) decodes the **paralinguistic** layer of speech
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lawfully and deterministically: energy, voicing, pitch contour (prosody),
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pauses, turn boundaries, emphasis, non-speech events. It is **deaf to lexical
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content** — it hears *how* something is said, never *what words* were said.
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ADR-0181 admits learned ASR (Whisper/NeMo) as **teacher/shadow lanes only** —
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typed transcript *labels*, never substrate, never folded into the versor. The
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serving path is and must remain Whisper-free
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([overview §9](../audio_pipeline_overview.md)): **the teacher teaches; the lawful
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path serves.**
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That doctrine only holds in production **if a lawful runtime path exists to carry
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the words** the teacher bootstrapped. This ADR is the placeholder for designing
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that path. It is a **stub**: it records the fork and the constraints so whoever
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reaches the words problem does not silently reach for Whisper in the serving
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path. It is **not** a committed design yet.
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> **This is the PR to scrutinise hard** (per the overview's warning): the moment
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> a real consumer turns audio into words at serving time, the 0-parameter,
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> decode-not-borrow doctrine is on the line.
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## 2. Problem statement
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Define a **deterministic, 0-parameter, replayable** path from a canonical audio
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signal to **lexical content** (words / lexemes) that:
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- never calls a learned model in the serving path;
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- preserves the ADR-0181 invariants (versor condition < 1e-6; merge-key
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determinism; no PCM in traces; no normalization outside allowed sites);
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- recovers what it can from physical facts in the wave (decode, not borrow), and
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refuses honestly where it cannot (no fabricated words — the `wrong = 0`
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discipline generalises here);
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- can be *taught* (vocabulary grown through the reviewed corridor) without the
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teacher becoming a runtime dependency.
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## 3. Candidate directions (to be evaluated, not yet decided)
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Two non-exclusive paths, named in the overview:
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- **(A) Words-as-text.** Audio stays a paralinguistic-plus-coarse-phonetic sense;
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the *what* arrives through the existing **text modality**. No serving-time ASR
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at all. Cleanest and lowest-risk; may be sufficient for many use cases.
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- **(B) Deterministic audio→lexeme decode.** Extend the acoustic front-end toward
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**lawful phonetics** — formant tracking, spectral-band energies — to recover
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vowel quality and broad consonant classes, then match against **taught
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vocabulary** (acoustic-pattern ↔ lexeme associations grown via the reviewed
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teaching corridor). 0-parameter, fully replayable; real-speech ceiling is lower
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than learned ASR, and that cost must be stated honestly.
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A teacher (Whisper, reviewed) may **bootstrap** the taught vocabulary for (B),
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then be removed — it is scaffolding, not a component
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([overview §9](../audio_pipeline_overview.md)).
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## 4. Constraints any accepted design must honour
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- **0 learned parameters in the serving path** (track in
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[`docs/model_dependency_size_tally.md`](../model_dependency_size_tally.md)).
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- **Decode, not borrow** — features must be physically present in the wave; no
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opaque latents (ADR-0181 §5 rejects embeddings as substrate).
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- **Refuse over fabricate** — where phonetic evidence is insufficient, emit no
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lexeme rather than a guess; reuse the `wrong = 0` / honest-refusal discipline.
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- **Lexeme growth is reviewed** — new acoustic↔lexeme associations enter only
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through the contemplation → proposal → HITL corridor (cf. ADR-0164/0165's
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treatment of lexicon/primitive growth), never as raw model output.
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- **Determinism / replay** — same canonical bytes ⇒ same lexemes ⇒ same trace
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hash; quantize before semantics (ADR-0181 spec §7).
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## 5. Open questions (for the full ADR)
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- Is (A) alone sufficient, deferring (B) indefinitely? What use cases actually
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require serving-time audio→words?
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- What is the minimal lawful phonetic feature set (formants? MFCC-like bands? —
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noting MFCC must stay deterministic and inspectable, not a learned frontend)?
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- How are acoustic↔lexeme associations represented in a pack, and how are they
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taught/reviewed/versioned/checksummed?
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- What is the honest accuracy ceiling of (B), and how is it measured (a sealed
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audio eval lane analogous to the GSM8K sealed test)?
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- Speaker/accent/noise robustness without learned models — scope or explicitly
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out-of-scope for v1?
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- Does (B) compose with the binding-graph / comprehension reader the same way the
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text path does, so downstream is unchanged?
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## 6. Decision
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**Deferred.** This stub records the fork and the constraints. No path is selected
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yet. The serving path remains Whisper-free and audio remains paralinguistic until
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a full ADR selects and specifies (A) and/or (B).
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## 7. Consequences
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- Until this is taken up, audio comprehension is **prosody/turn/affect only** at
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serving time; lexical content for audio is unavailable in production (text
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modality carries words).
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- Recording the fork now prevents the silent failure mode: someone wiring a
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teacher into the serving path because "audio needs words" without confronting
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the doctrinal cost. That decision must go through *this* ADR's successor.
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## 8. References
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- ADR-0181 — Audio compiler; teacher/shadow policy; embeddings rejected as substrate.
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- ADR-0180 — Delta-CRDT substrate; trace/merge determinism the lexeme path must preserve.
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- ADR-0164 / ADR-0165 — reviewed growth of lexicon entries and lexeme primitives (the corridor a taught audio vocabulary would reuse).
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- [`docs/audio_pipeline_overview.md`](../audio_pipeline_overview.md) §9 — teacher = scaffolding; serving path stays Whisper-free; paths (A)/(B).
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- [`docs/model_dependency_size_tally.md`](../model_dependency_size_tally.md) — the 0-parameter tally this path must not move.
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