# Prosociality by Coupling, Not Mere Observation: Homeostatic Sharing in an Inspectable Recurrent Artificial Life Agent

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.10760 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.10760/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 3 of its 11 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 Apr 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Embodied social interaction constitutes social cognition in pairs of humans: A minimalist virtual reality experiment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1401.4158/) (2014)
- [Homeostatic Coupling for Prosocial Behavior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.12894/) (2025)
- [ReCoN-Ipsundrum: An Inspectable Recurrent Persistence Loop Agent with Affect-Coupled Control and Mechanism-Linked Consciousness Indicator Assays](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.23232/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Artificial agents can be made to ``help'' through explicit social rewards, hard-coded prosocial bonuses, or direct access to another agent's state. I isolate a narrower route: homeostatic coupling. Building on ReCoN-Ipsundrum, I add a scalar homeostat and a social coupling channel while keeping action selection self-directed: the planner scores only the actor's predicted internal state, with no partner-welfare reward. In a one-step FoodShareToy, an exact solver finds a switch from EAT to PASS at λ^star ≈ 0.91 for the default state. In a multi-step SocialCorridorWorld, partner-state access without coupling leaves behavior unchanged, whereas coupled agents fetch, carry, and pass food to the partner. Sham lesions preserve helping; coupling-off and shuffled-partner lesions abolish it. A coupling/load sweep shows that coupling creates a low-load helping regime but does not guarantee rescue under higher metabolic load. This is not a claim about empathy, altruism, consciousness, or moral status. It is a minimal ALife demonstration that, in this controller, partner-state access is behaviorally inert unless partner distress is routed into self-regulation.