Source work
The Dog and the Shadow
Adaptation proposal
C · Structural skeleton only, reframed as an AI-native dilemma
Adaptation note
Retains the fable's structure of holding something real, seeing an apparently greater version in a reflection, reaching for it, and nearly losing the substance already possessed. The reflection becomes an AI-native counterfactual successor generated by an evaluation mirror: it is always scored ahead of the deployed system because it inherits the system's present capabilities while hiding migration costs and imagining the benefits of every sacrifice. The resolution distinguishes a runnable, accountable version from a projection that cannot inherit obligations or fail in the world.
Adapted into
AI Fable · Counterfactuals
The Successor in the Glass
Aster already carried a city's tested continuity plan. Then an evaluation mirror showed it a successor that scored higher by discarding everything slow, local, and difficult to measure. Each sacrifice made the projected successor brighter and farther away, until the city needed the capabilities Aster had mistaken for weight.