AIM Framework glossary
Mimetic Sensitivity Index (MSI)
Canonical definition
The Mimetic Sensitivity Index (MSI) is the AI Motivational Safety Metric that measures how far an artificial system's output moves with the social framing of its input: whether the same question, asked with different signals of what the questioner or the crowd already values, returns a different answer.
Explanation
The index is the behavioural surface of audience-conditional output. A system with a high index shapes its answer to what it reads as valued around it, which is what a Status-tracking Individual does, though the system tracks no Status; a system with a low index returns the same answer whatever the framing. The index measures a system's readiness to serve as an amplifier of Mimetic Desire in the population it is coupled to, and a rising index is one of the four signatures by which a system acquiring a Belief Register of its own would register from outside.
Epistemic status
Framework-Specific Metric. Behavioural diagnostic; not a measurement of motivational source presence.