{ "model": { "rank": 4294, "code": "thing-q11188", "model_id": "vr.tr.world-population", "name": "world population", "purpose": "Let an agent report world population figures and projections with sources, dates and uncertainty, and explain how they are estimated.", "family": "Thing Registry", "category": "Cross-cutting context", "status": "research-draft", "kind": "thing", "plane": "XCT", "domain": "XCT.QTY", "industry": "", "version": "", "url": "/models/thing/q11188/", "tier": 2, "score": 77, "payload": { "layer": "wikidata", "aliases": [], "aliasCount": 0, "merged": 0, "knownIn": 77, "facets": null, "markers": [], "lexicalClass": "", "senseRank": null, "alsoRegisteredAs": null, "source": { "dataset": "wikidata", "item": "Q11188", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11188", "license": "CC0 1.0" } }, "research": { "vercy": "1.0-draft", "publication": { "status": "research-draft", "adjudicationStatus": "unreviewed", "publishableCanonical": false, "generatedAt": "2026-09-11T15:11:43Z", "providers": [ "Claude" ], "breadth": "written by Claude from model knowledge without web access - no source was read, every claim is a lead to verify", "pass": 2, "wave": 1, "engine": "claude" }, "metaModel": { "id": "THING-Q11188", "registryId": "vr.tr.world-population", "name": "world population", "version": "0.2.0-wave.1", "entryKind": "thing", "family": "Thing Registry", "domain": [ "XCT.QTY" ], "status": "research-draft" }, "canonicalUrl": "https://ver.cy/models/thing/q11188/", "model": { "registry_id": "vr.tr.world-population", "name": "world population", "purpose": "Let an agent report world population figures and projections with sources, dates and uncertainty, and explain how they are estimated.", "definition": "The total number of living humans on Earth, estimated by the United Nations at about 8.2 billion in 2025, having passed 8 billion in late 2022; growth has slowed as fertility falls, and UN projections suggest a peak of around 10.3 billion in the 2080s, with uncertainty.", "what_it_is_for": "Demography, policy and education.", "affordances": [ "find current population estimates with dates", "explain how estimates and projections are made", "describe regional differences", "discuss projections with uncertainty" ], "distinguishing_features": [ "Global total", "Estimated, not counted directly", "Growth slowing", "Projections carry uncertainty" ], "appearance": "Not physical; figures in reports, counters and charts.", "visual_identification": [ "UN World Population Prospects figures", "Population clocks are estimates", "Country populations are components" ], "physical_properties": [ { "quantity": "estimate", "typical_range": "about 8.2 billion", "unit": "people", "note": "UN estimate for 2025" } ], "families_and_kinds": [ "current estimates", "historical estimates", "projections and scenarios", "regional breakdowns" ], "related_models": [ { "relation": "is a kind of", "target": "population size", "why": "category" }, { "relation": "is estimated by", "target": "UN Population Division", "why": "source" }, { "relation": "is related to", "target": "demographics of Europe", "why": "regional data" }, { "relation": "is related to", "target": "infant mortality", "why": "component indicator" } ], "identifiers": [], "standards_and_regulation": [ "UN World Population Prospects methodology", "National census standards" ], "failure_modes_and_hazards": [ "Quoting live counters as exact", "Presenting projections as certain", "Alarmist or dismissive framing" ], "in_scope": [], "out_of_scope": [], "characteristics": [] }, "sources": [], "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "current", "name": "Current", "description": "Latest figures.", "rationale": "Dates matter.", "layers": [ { "id": "figure", "name": "Figure", "description": "Latest estimate.", "findings": [ { "id": "figure-finding", "name": "Figure", "description": "Latest estimate.", "questions": [ { "text": "What is the latest world population estimate, from which UN revision and for which date?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "How uncertain is it?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "regions", "name": "Regions", "description": "By region.", "findings": [ { "id": "regions-finding", "name": "Regions", "description": "Regional breakdown.", "questions": [ { "text": "How is population distributed by region and country?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which countries are largest?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "method", "name": "Method", "description": "Estimation.", "rationale": "Estimates combine data.", "layers": [ { "id": "sources", "name": "Sources", "description": "Data sources.", "findings": [ { "id": "sources-finding", "name": "Sources", "description": "Data sources.", "questions": [ { "text": "How does the UN estimate world population from censuses and surveys?", "kind": "definition" }, { "text": "Where are data weakest?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "clocks", "name": "Clocks", "description": "Population clocks.", "findings": [ { "id": "clocks-finding", "name": "Clocks", "description": "Population clocks.", "questions": [ { "text": "Why do population clocks differ, and are they exact?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "text": "Which sources run them?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "future", "name": "Future", "description": "Projections.", "rationale": "Projections are scenarios.", "layers": [ { "id": "projection", "name": "Projection", "description": "UN projections.", "findings": [ { "id": "projection-finding", "name": "Projection", "description": "Projections.", "questions": [ { "text": "What do UN projections say about the peak and decline, and under which scenario?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "How have projections changed over revisions?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] }, { "id": "drivers", "name": "Drivers", "description": "Fertility and mortality.", "findings": [ { "id": "drivers-finding", "name": "Drivers", "description": "Drivers.", "questions": [ { "text": "How do fertility and mortality trends drive the projections?", "kind": "definition" }, { "text": "Which assumptions matter most?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "history", "name": "History", "description": "Past growth.", "rationale": "History gives context.", "layers": [ { "id": "milestones", "name": "Milestones", "description": "Billion milestones.", "findings": [ { "id": "milestones-finding", "name": "Milestones", "description": "Milestones.", "questions": [ { "text": "When did world population reach each billion, according to the UN?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "How fast is growth now?", "kind": "measurement" } ] } ] }, { "id": "framing", "name": "Framing", "description": "Neutral discussion.", "findings": [ { "id": "framing-finding", "name": "Framing", "description": "Neutral framing.", "questions": [ { "text": "Is the discussion of population balanced and free of alarmism or dismissal?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "text": "Are policy views attributed?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "openQuestions": [ "Should historical estimates be separate entries?", "How should UN revisions be tracked?", "How should regional data be linked?" ], "statistics": { "bundles": 4, "layers": 8, "findings": 8, "questions": 16 } }, "draft": { "generator": "vr.draft.v3", "status": "draft-generated", "researched": false, "archetype": "unit, quantity or measure", "method": "Written from the archetype playbook - what this kind of thing needs beyond identity and provenance - and from the structure that recurred across 6,333 models already researched by two engines. Applied to this entry by rule. No source was read for this thing and no claim here is researched. This entry carries no facets of its own, so they were inferred from its domain - a guess about a whole domain applied to one thing.", "facetsInferred": true, "nextPass": "A researcher replaces this draft with a sourced specification. Treat every sentence below as a proposal to argue with.", "purpose": "Give an agent a durable, checkable way to recognise a world population, record what state it is in, and decide what may be done with it.", "whatItIs": "Let an agent report world population figures and projections with sources, dates and uncertainty, and explain how they are estimated.", "characteristics": { "substance": "abstract", "origin": "conceptual", "agency": "inert" }, "whatYouCanDoWithIt": [ "observed and measured" ], "distinguishingFeatures": [ "Described in 77 Wikipedia languages, which is a measure of how widely the thing is known, not of how important it is." ], "openQuestionsForResearch": [ "Which of the bundles below does a real task actually need, and which are ceremony?", "What does this thing have that the facets do not capture at all?", "Which neighbouring kind is most often confused with a world population, and on what evidence are they told apart?" ], "whatItIsMadeOf": "an abstraction with no physical instance", "physicalCharacter": [ "Does nothing on its own; everything it does, something else did to it.", "These come from the domain this entry sits in rather than from the entry itself, so treat them as a first guess about the whole domain applied to one thing." ], "whatCanBeDoneWithIt": [ "observe it, measure it, record its state" ], "howItIsRecognised": [ "Nothing to see: a unit is a convention. What is seen is an instrument reading in it." ], "relatedModels": [], "standing": "Described in 77 Wikipedia languages, which measures how widely it is written about rather than how important or how common it is.", "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "identity-and-classification", "name": "Identity, naming and classification", "description": "How an agent tells one world population from another, and a world population from things that resemble it.", "rationale": "Recognition comes before every other claim. Without stable identity nothing else in the model can be trusted to be about the same thing twice.", "layers": [ { "id": "naming-and-identifiers", "name": "Names and identifiers", "description": "The names this thing goes by and the identifiers that survive translation and time.", "findings": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases", "name": "Preferred name, aliases and local names", "description": "Which name to use, which names mean the same thing, and which merely sound similar.", "questions": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the name of a world population, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the name of a world population, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the name of a world population is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers", "name": "Stable identifiers and external keys", "description": "Identifiers that keep pointing at this kind of thing across systems and languages.", "questions": [ { "id": "stable-identifiers-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an identifier for a world population, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an identifier for a world population, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an identifier for a world population is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "classification-and-granularity", "name": "Classification and granularity", "description": "Where a world population sits among kinds, and how finely a task needs to cut it.", "findings": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents", "name": "Kind, parents and neighbouring kinds", "description": "The classes this thing belongs to and the ones it is next to.", "questions": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the kind of a world population, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the kind of a world population, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the kind of a world population is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features", "name": "Distinguishing features", "description": "What separates a world population from the things most often confused with it.", "questions": [ { "id": "distinguishing-features-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes what distinguishes a world population, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about what distinguishes a world population, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once what distinguishes a world population is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "state-and-lifecycle", "name": "State and lifecycle", "description": "The states a world population passes through and the events that move it between them.", "rationale": "Most decisions about a thing depend on what state it is in now, which is a claim with a time on it, not a property.", "layers": [ { "id": "lifecycle-stages", "name": "Lifecycle stages", "description": "From coming into existence to ceasing to be one of these.", "findings": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions", "name": "Stages and transitions", "description": "The stages worth naming and what moves a world population between them.", "questions": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the lifecycle of a world population, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the lifecycle of a world population, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the lifecycle of a world population is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "observations-and-status", "name": "Observations and current status", "description": "What is observed about a world population, how often and by whom.", "findings": [ { "id": "observation-record", "name": "Observation record", "description": "How an observation of a world population is recorded so that it can be superseded rather than overwritten.", "questions": [ { "id": "observation-record-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an observation of a world population, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an observation of a world population, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an observation of a world population is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "definition-and-realisation", "name": "Definition, dimension and realisation", "description": "What world population is defined as and how it is realised in practice.", "rationale": "A unit is not the quantity it measures, and its definition has a history that older data still depends on.", "layers": [ { "id": "definition", "name": "Definition and dimension", "description": "The defining relation and the quantity it measures.", "findings": [ { "id": "definition-record", "name": "Definition, body and date", "description": "What defines it now, and what defined it before.", "questions": [ { "id": "definition-record-q01", "text": "How is world population defined, by which body, and since when?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "definition-record-q02", "text": "What was the previous definition, and what data still depends on it?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] }, { "id": "conversion", "name": "Conversion and compatibility", "description": "Relations to other units, exact or approximate.", "findings": [ { "id": "conversion-record", "name": "Conversions and their exactness", "description": "Factors, and whether each is exact by definition.", "questions": [ { "id": "conversion-record-q01", "text": "What conversions relate world population to other units, and which are exact by definition?", "kind": "measurement" }, { "id": "conversion-record-q02", "text": "Where does rounding a conversion change a decision, and how should that be recorded?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "provenance-and-evidence", "name": "Provenance, evidence and time", "description": "Where every claim about a world population came from and when it held.", "rationale": "A claim without a source and a time cannot be superseded, only overwritten, and an agent that overwrites loses the ability to explain itself.", "layers": [ { "id": "source-and-authority", "name": "Source and authority", "description": "Who said it, on what evidence, and how strongly.", "findings": [ { "id": "claim-provenance", "name": "Claim provenance and confidence", "description": "The authority behind each claim about a world population and how confident it is.", "questions": [ { "id": "claim-provenance-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a claim about a world population, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a claim about a world population, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a claim about a world population is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "time-and-versions", "name": "Time, versions and supersession", "description": "When a claim was true, when it was learnt, and what replaced it.", "findings": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession", "name": "Validity period and supersession", "description": "How an old claim about a world population is retired without being erased.", "questions": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the validity of a claim about a world population, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the validity of a claim about a world population, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the validity of a claim about a world population is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "statistics": { "bundles": 4, "layers": 8, "findings": 10, "questions": 28 } } } }