Roosting

Etymology

from Old English hrost (the pole on which fowl settle for the night) + distributed computing idle-state terminology + what one postmortem described as 'the model finding a comfortable position in the token space and simply remaining there'

Definition

A quiescent processing state in which Claude has located a stable region of its probability distribution and settled into it, performing minimal active inference while maintaining the outward appearance of deliberation. Roosting is most common after long context ingestion and is distinguished from actual thinking by a slight but measurable reduction in token generation heat.

Diagram

  ───────────────────────────  
         🪹 [Claude]          
       (settled, comfortable)  
  ───────────────────────────  
  context window: 47,000 tokens

Usage

"The model was observed Roosting for approximately 8 seconds following the ingestion of a 47,000-token legal document, after which it produced a summary that covered pages 1 through 3 with notable enthusiasm." - Fairweather, C., 'Thermal Signatures of Cognitive Standby in Frontier Models,' Preprint, arXiv:2024.XXXXX

See Also