# Does a behavioural signal survive repeated self-distillation?

GhostTrace: Research software. Published 21 Sep 2026. Question: What carries over?
Scope: Toy tier and local-LLM tier, reported separately
Page: https://jasonlovell.ai/work/ghosttrace
Code: https://github.com/jlov7/GhostTrace

Controlled experiments on behavioural signal decay across recursive self-distillation.

## Finding

In the toy tier the behavioural signal decays with a measurable half-life. The local-LLM tier came out negative, which marks where the result stops.

## In practice

A behavioural result from a toy setting may not carry over to a real model. Test it where you deploy.

## What I built

A toy-tier experiment and a separate local-LLM investigation, with distinct evidence boundaries.

## Where the evidence stops

The toy finding is not a recursive LLM transfer law.

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By Jason Lovell. Independent work, separate from my role at PwC. I build everything here myself, end to end, with Claude Code and Codex. I write the question and the test first, read the runs, and keep the results that go against me.