Failure Modes & Scope

AI-2027 catalogs failure modes across six domains. This project examines how specific assumptions change under a Constitutional Execution Architecture. The mapping between these two frames is documented below.

This page makes the relationship explicit: what is directly addressed, what is indirectly affected, and what is intentionally outside the scope of this analysis.

This project is a counterfactual analysis tool, not a counter-argument. It examines how outcomes differ when execution is bounded and witnessed — it does not claim to resolve the failure modes AI-2027 describes.

Coverage: 1 direct, 8 indirect, 7 out of scope.

Alignment & Control

Deceptive alignment / scheming — Indirect

Bounded execution narrows the set of executable states; it does not detect or prevent deceptive intent.

See response

Reward hacking — Indirect

Execution envelopes constrain what can run, not what an agent optimizes for.

See response

Sandbagging / capability hiding — Out of Scope

Behavioral deception during evaluation is outside the scope of runtime constraints.

Goal subversion / self-exfiltration — Indirect

Constitutional abstention makes some actions architecturally unexecutable; it does not address all goal subversion paths.

See response

Security & Cybersecurity

Model weight theft — Indirect

Public verifiability changes observability; it does not prevent exfiltration.

See response

Insider threats / supply-chain attacks — Out of Scope

Operational security is outside the scope of architectural execution constraints.

SL4/SL5 security gaps — Out of Scope

Security level requirements are an operational and policy matter.

Geopolitics & Arms Race

Race dynamics / pause collapse — Direct

Verifiable pauses make restraint observable without centralized enforcement.

See response

Military escalation / weaponization — Out of Scope

Military capability and doctrine are outside the scope of this analysis.

Treaty verification failure — Indirect

Attestation infrastructure addresses verifiability, not treaty design.

See response

Governance & Epistemic Collapse

Epistemic overload / decision capture — Indirect

Constitutional abstention introduces architectural constraints on execution; it does not address epistemic quality broadly.

See response

Totalitarian lock-in — Indirect

Public verifiability makes concentrated power observable; it does not prevent its exercise.

See response

Economic & Societal Disruption

Job obsolescence / inequality — Out of Scope

Economic distribution is outside the scope of execution architecture.

Human enfeeblement — Out of Scope

Long-term human capability effects are not addressed by runtime constraints.

Catastrophic Endgames

Extinction risk — Out of Scope

This project narrows specific assumptions; it does not address existential risk in aggregate.

Permanent power concentration — Indirect

Observability narrows opacity; it does not redistribute power.

See response

Absence of a failure mode from the "Direct" column does not imply dismissal. It means this analysis does not make claims about that domain.