The Cultural Ratchet

Knowledge accumulates across agent generations without any individual agent needing to reconstruct the whole.

Michael Tomasello's concept describes how human culture advances: each generation inherits accumulated knowledge without needing to rediscover it. Google's research applies this to AI -- knowledge should accumulate across agent generations and sessions.

In steadybase, the App Builder Kit is a cultural ratchet. One agent built the OS shell and wrote institutional knowledge into documentation. A different Claude instance can now build RollCall without understanding how the shell was constructed. Each agent generation inherits the accumulated work of previous generations.

The Intelligence Lab extends this further. It evaluates new models, tools, and frameworks continuously. When it finds something valuable, that knowledge is integrated into the OS. Every agent benefits. No single agent needs to understand the whole.