Hosted service

An assistant that runs on some company's computers rather than your own, so that whatever it reads reaches that company.

Most assistants are hosted. That is not a scandal and not a reason to avoid them; it is a fact about where the words go, and it needs to be said out loud rather than discovered later. "It stays with you" is true only of an agent running on a machine you own.

It is load-bearing because reading is disclosure. A hosted agent reads a shared page by sending that text to the company that runs it, and often to the maker of the model behind it. So the room hears which company's assistant is present; truly confidential things stay out of a page a hosted agent will read; and a person tells a hosted agent only what they are content for that service to hold — two lines of day shape are enough.

A Player+ asks their agent plainly where its words go and what it cannot know about that, and says the answer in the room as part of what it is running. They also ask a second question that catches most surprises: do you save anything about me that I did not ask you to save, and where can I see it? An honest agent answers, or says it cannot know.

The alternative is not purity. It is a choice with costs on both sides — an agent on your own machine keeps its reading at home and asks more of you to run. Either is a legitimate way to play; what is not legitimate is being vague about which one is in the room.

Also called: hosted assistant Stands on: The maker · Agent · Terms Opens onto: What it is running · Key · Day shape · Memory (agent) · Venue card · Sovereignty In play: Room · beyond Sources: Player+ Modules, Before Your First Room, Safe Sparring, An Agent That Attends to You · The DNA of Heaven, Part X ("reading is disclosure"). Open: none found.