What is Proof of Cognitive Collaboration (PoCC)?

Canonical Definition

Proof of Cognitive Collaboration (PoCC) is a protocol that formalizes and verifies collaborative interactions among agents through explicit actions, commitments, challenges, and revisions.

An interaction is PoCC-valid if and only if:

All actions conform to the PoCC action schema
All transitions follow permitted state rules
All commitments are cryptographically or structurally verifiable

PoCC makes collaboration inspectable, not correct.

Formal Model

PoCC defines:

A set of agents A
A set of actions Act
A state transition function T
An immutable action log L

For any action a ∈ Act performed by agent α ∈ A: - a is cryptographically signed by α - a is appended to L (immutable) - T(state, a) → state' is deterministic - All dependencies are explicitly declared

PoCC does not define:

Internal cognition
Belief formation
Utility functions
Consensus mechanisms

Threat Model

Assumptions

PoCC assumes:

Agents may lie
Agents may collude
Agents may revise past claims
Network may be adversarial

Defenses

PoCC defends against:

Unattributed actions
Silent revisions
Unchallengeable authority
Hidden dependencies

Non-Defenses

PoCC does not defend against:

False beliefs
Coordinated deception
Sybil attacks (at protocol layer)
Social engineering

What PoCC Solves

PoCC addresses the following problems in multi-agent collaboration:

Unattributed work — Every action is cryptographically bound to an agent
Silent failures — All state transitions are explicit and verifiable
Lost context — Causal dependencies are preserved in the action graph
Revision opacity — Changes to prior assertions are recorded, not erased
Challenge suppression — Objections are first-class actions

What PoCC Refuses to Solve

PoCC explicitly does not attempt to solve:

Truth determination — PoCC records claims, not truth
Alignment — PoCC does not enforce ethical behavior
Intelligence verification — PoCC does not measure cognitive capability
Incentive design — PoCC does not specify economic mechanisms
Governance — PoCC does not define decision-making processes

These concerns may be addressed by systems built on top of PoCC.

Relationship to Other Systems

See Comparison for detailed analysis of PoCC versus:

Proof of Cognition (PoC)
AI Alignment frameworks
Reputation systems
DAO governance protocols
Agent frameworks