{
  "schema": "ULTRACON_AI_EPISTEMIC_UPDATE_V1",
  "id": "UCF-WATCH-2026-09-16",
  "date": "2026-09-16",
  "status": "SUBSTANTIVE_CORPUS_CORRECTION",
  "extends": "https://www.t-1-t.com/ultracon/confab/field.json",
  "source_addendum": "./sources.json",
  "axes": ["SPIRAL"],
  "change_type": ["substantive_corpus_correction", "direct_human_outcome_evidence", "feedback_loop_evidence_boundary"],
  "summary": "A substantive backfill adds the missing Science 2026 preregistered human experiments showing short-term downstream effects of sycophantic AI on responsibility, interpersonal repair and confidence, bounded by a peer-reviewed Communications Psychology perspective on norm leakage and an npj Digital Medicine scoping review that maps the still-limited evidence for mental-health harms and dependence.",
  "functional_ladder_guard": {
    "unchanged": true,
    "rule": "M1 uncertainty representation, M2 metacognitive control and M3 limited introspective access remain distinct; none entails M5 phenomenal consciousness.",
    "notation": "M1/M2/M3 ↛ M5"
  },
  "selection_notes": "No newly indexed 15–16 September publication crossed the intervention threshold. This update is therefore explicitly a corpus correction: a high-priority Science result directly relevant to SPIRAL had not yet been represented, and two peer-reviewed syntheses sharpen the non-inference boundaries around durable dependence, psychiatric harm and human–AI feedback loops."
}