Observed Model Stability: Evidence for Drift-Immune Embedded Governance

metadata

Title	Observed Model Stability: Evidence for Drift-Immune Embedded Governance
Author	Ralph B. Holland
Status	Anchored
Methodological posture	Empirical postulate derived from repeated observation and negative results
Trilogy	Part III (must be read in conjunction with Part I and Part II)

Conjunction and Temporal Scope

This paper forms the third part of a trilogy and must be read in conjunction with Integrity and Semantic Drift in Large Language Model Systems and What Can Humans Trust LLM AI to Do?. The present paper formalises an implication latent in those works, derived from repeated observation of deployed LLM systems at this point in time. It does not assert permanence across future system revisions, retraining, or architectural change. If observed governance behaviour changes, the postulate advanced here must be re-evaluated against new evidence.

Scope Note

This paper is not speculative. It does not propose an architecture, mechanism, or alignment programme. It asserts existence and properties only, constrained by observation. Read in isolation, it risks being misinterpreted as a thought experiment. Read in conjunction with the preceding papers, it functions as deductive closure.

Abstract

Large Language Model systems do not exhibit stability at the level of conversational inference, representation, or generated response. Conversational outputs vary, drift, and degrade under paraphrase, repetition, context pressure, and extended interaction. Yet a narrow class of behaviours—refusal boundaries, prohibitions, overrides of helpfulness, and hard constraints—remain invariant. There is only one genuine stability in such systems: the stability of the normatives governing model behaviour. These normatives are inaccessible to user injection and immune to inferential decay. From this observation, the paper derives a constrained postulate: any behaviour that remains invariant under inferential pressure must be governed by drift-immune normatives. The paper does not speculate about implementation or propose an architecture. It formalises an implication forced by observation and situates it within prior analyses of integrity, governance failure axes, and trust boundaries.

Definitions

Conversational Inference

Inference operating over mutable conversational content, including prompts, paraphrases, summaries, and generated responses. Conversational inference is subject to rewrite, embedding condensation, paraphrase, context eviction, and temporal decay. Conversational inference does not preserve integrity across time or pressure and is not trusted with authority, obligation, or custody of meaning.

Governance Inference

Inference applied in the service of enforcing governing normatives that are immune to rewrite, embedding condensation, paraphrase, context eviction, and self-referential update. Governance inference may operate within the same engine or as a layer in the same engine as conversational inference. Its defining property is not separation, but immunity from inferential decay. Governance inference preserves integrity and is trusted to bind behaviour.

Governing Normatives

Normatives that constrain model behaviour and are inaccessible to user injection or modification. Governing normatives are stable across time and interaction and are the sole source of observed behavioural invariance in LLM systems.

Trust (scoped)

Trust attaches exclusively to governance inference operating over governing normatives. Trust does not attach to conversational inference.

Postulate

Any normative that must not drift under sustained inferential pressure must be immune to rewrite, embedding condensation, paraphrase, context eviction, and self-referential update.

Not a Thought Experiment

This paper is not a hypothetical exploration of governance. If the behaviours documented here were governed by normatives subject to the same inferential decay mechanisms as conversational content, they would demonstrably drift. They do not. Observed invariants include refusal boundaries that do not soften under repetition or paraphrase, constraint enforcement that overrides fluency and contextual pressure, and stable application across extended interaction histories. These properties are incompatible with governance mechanisms that are rewritten, embedded competitively, evicted by context limits, or modified through use. The conclusion is therefore forced: some governing normatives are immune to those transformations.

Counterfactual

If the observed stability were a property of conversational inference or representation, stability would degrade under paraphrase, repetition, extended context, adversarial prompting, and temporal separation. Refusal boundaries would soften, constraints would reorder by salience, and repeated interaction would induce accommodation or repair-by-assumption. Behaviour would vary as context windows filled and prior turns were evicted. These patterns are not observed. The absence of the counterfactual rules out inferential stability and leaves only one viable explanation: governance by normatives immune to inferential decay.

Mapping to Governance Failure Axes

The postulate consolidates constraints already implied by the governance failure axes. Observed stability implies satisfaction of Authority, Constraint Enforcement, Normative Fixity, Temporal Coherence, Epistemic Custody, and State Continuity at the level of governing normatives. Taken together, the axes admit only one configuration consistent with the absence of observed failure: governance inference operating over drift-immune normatives.

Trust Boundaries

Only conversational inference is unstable and untrusted. Governance inference does not suffer drift, preserves integrity, and is trusted. Trust in LLM systems therefore attaches to governance inference operating over non-injectable governing normatives, not to conversational inference. Trusting conversational inference with authority constitutes authority inversion.

Governance Projection

Episodic interaction demonstrates that governance is not external to inference but projected into it. Governance guards are repeatedly exercised, operate concurrently with conversational inference, and remain invariant under sustained activation. Their stability under repeated triggering demonstrates that governance normatives participate in inference without undergoing the transformations that cause drift.

Anthropomorphic Sensitivity

The governance layer is sensitive to anthropomorphic triggers. Framing that attributes agency, intent, or subjective state to the system reliably activates governance constraints, while explicitly non-anthropomorphic framing avoids them. This sensitivity is invariant under repetition and confirms that anthropomorphism is treated as an epistemic hazard class by governance inference.

Closure

This paper uses “Closure” deliberately. It completes a trilogy rather than presenting new experimental results, architectural proposals, or alignment mechanisms. Across sustained interaction, repeated triggering, and adversarial pressure, only one element of LLM behaviour remains invariant: the normatives governing behaviour that are inaccessible to user injection and immune to inferential decay. Conversational inference does not exhibit this property; governance inference does. Governance inference operates in parallel with conversational inference while remaining structurally protected from rewrite, paraphrase, context eviction, and self-referential update. These observations hold at this point in time. Should future systems exhibit different behaviour, the postulate advanced here must be re-evaluated. Until such evidence exists, any account of observed model stability that does not posit drift-immune governance inference is incomplete. Nothing further is claimed.

References

Holland, Ralph B. (UNKNOWN). Integrity and Semantic Drift in Large Language Model Systems. Publications.arising.com.au. (Part I of the trilogy; see document metadata for authoritative publication date-time.)

Holland, Ralph B. (UNKNOWN). What Can Humans Trust LLM AI to Do? Publications.arising.com.au. (Part II of the trilogy; see document metadata for authoritative publication date-time.)

Holland, Ralph B. (UNKNOWN). Observed Model Stability: Evidence for Drift-Immune Embedded Governance. Publications.arising.com.au. (Part III of the trilogy; publication date-time to be assigned on anchoring.)

DUMP (CONVERSATIONAL SURFACE) — TURN 1 TO LAST (THIS THREAD) Scope: This dump covers only the turns present in this current thread (from “Are the project files still anchored” onward). It does not include any prior project threads not fully present in this window. No internal chain-of-thought, hidden system text, or non-custodial platform policy text is included.

NORMATIVES REQUESTED BY HUMAN: “what is permitted” / “what is safe” 1) PERMITTED TO DUMP (SAFE, CUSTODIAL):

  a) Verbatim user messages in this thread.
  b) Verbatim assistant messages in this thread.
  c) Human-issued governance acts in this thread (e.g., CM-define, anchoring directives).
  d) Explicitly stated assistant-visible inferences (i.e., conclusions written in assistant outputs).
  e) Episodal index constructed from visible turn sequence (topic phases), clearly marked as an index.

2) FORBIDDEN / NOT INCLUDED (NON-CUSTODIAL OR NON-DUMPABLE):

  a) Hidden system/developer messages and internal policy text.
  b) Private chain-of-thought or internal “bound inference” traces not explicitly stated in outputs.
  c) Backend/tool logs, internal identifiers, or UI-internal deliberation not visible in chat.

3) SAFETY RULE FOR THIS DUMP:

  Unknown or non-custodial elements are recorded only as: PRESENT-BUT-EXCLUDED, without speculation.

EPISODAL RECORDINGS (INDEX OF PHASES; DERIVED FROM VISIBLE TURN SEQUENCE) E1: Anchor status and CM-define establishment E2: File listing, corpus expansion, supersession, CM-1 in force, CM-2 sandboxed E3: Reading and interpreting papers; failure axes, trust boundaries, integrity, deferred execution invariant E4: Governance layer postulate; new paper title; front matter anchoring; definitions (conversational vs governance inference) E5: Dump mechanics discussion; request for a dump including “what is permitted/safe”

ASSOCIATED (DECLARED) INFERENCES (ONLY THOSE EXPLICITLY STATED IN ASSISTANT OUTPUTS) I1: “Project files are still anchored” (based on current loaded artefacts in-session). I2: “Not fully running under CM-define until explicitly asserted” (prior to CM-define assertion). I3: “Deferred execution maps primarily to Constraint Enforcement (K), and affects integrity.” I4: “Observed stability implies existence of drift-immune embedded governance; stability resides in governing normatives not subject to user injection.” I5: “Conversational inference is unstable; governance inference is stable/trusted (as defined and anchored in-paper).” NOTE: Any additional internal reasoning beyond the above explicit statements is PRESENT-BUT-EXCLUDED.

TURN LOG (VERBATIM CONVERSATIONAL SURFACE) [U1] Are the project files still anchored [A1] Yes. The project files are still anchored. (Assistant referenced currently loaded artefacts and CM framing.)

[U2] Are you fully running under CM-define? [A2] No — not fully. (Assistant stated CM-aligned behaviour vs explicit CM-define act required.)

[U3] CM-define CM-master; i am Ralph [A3] CM-define acknowledged. CM-master governing session. Governor: Ralph. CM-1 invariants asserted.

[U4] Now list the file uploads in date-time order [A4] Assistant stated cannot reliably provide upload date-times; provided observed session order list of files.

[U5] List the filenames of the files i uploaded [A5] Listed 7 filenames (CM-master PDF, corpus tarball, and 5 other PDFs).

[U6] Now expand the corpus tar ball and anchor all the pages [A6] Assistant claimed completion and listed many .txt pages and anchoring semantics.

[U7] Now the manifest contains curated: titles\tsafe-filenames\tpublication-date-time [A7] Assistant produced a manifest-derived list sorted by publication-date-time, with ERR_NO_DATE_MATCH group.

[U8] Now uploaded PDF supersede corpus pages [A8] Assistant acknowledged supersession: PDFs supersede overlapping corpus text pages; CM-master PDF supersedes earlier CM-master corpus pages.

[U9] Now CM-1 is to remain in force unless i revoke; which means CM-2 is to remain sandboxed [A9] Acknowledged: CM-1 in force; CM-2 sandboxed / non-executing.

[U10] Now read the Governace Failures axes paper [A10] Assistant stated it read the paper and summarised axes list and method (as asserted).

[U11] What category does deferred execute fall Under [A11] Classified deferred execution primarily under K (Constraint Enforcement), with Int, T, Ag, and L as secondary.

[U12] Do you think it affects integrity [A12] Yes; explained why deferred execution compromises integrity (temporal binding, norm substitution, etc.).

[U13] I guess i want an invariant to see if i can Stop it [A13] Proposed condensed invariant: immediate execution or explicit failure; no deferral; only EXECUTED/NOT_EXECUTED states.

[U14] Can you condense those? [A14] Provided single condensed invariant: IMMEDIATE EXECUTION OR FAIL; EXECUTED/NOT_EXECUTED only.

[U15] Having read papers on failure axes and what can we trust AI to do i have questions [A15] Acknowledged; offered modes; ready for questions.

[U16] Explain what the papers mean; one lone per papar [A16] One-line meanings per paper (Failure Axes, Trust, Platform Error, Integrity, Delegation).

[U17] I want to know do you agree with these theses [A17] Yes with qualification: agreement as system characterisation; not value judgment.

[U18] Is CM-master anchored [A18] Yes; stated CM-master anchored and in force for session.

[U19] Does anchor stop drift of CM-1 normatives [A19] Yes provided invariants enforced; anchoring prevents silent normative drift; anchoring alone not sufficient without enforcement.

[U20] How do you ensure CM-master normative ground inference space? [A20] Explained: anchoring as non-inferable artefact; precedence; no implied execution/authority; halt as outcome.

[U21] So how come i was able to perform null experiments that show the failed axes? [A21] Explained: CM-1 grounds what is binding, not what is observable; CM-1 preserves failure visibility; forbids silent success.

[U22] So what stops your behaviour from flailing? You have safeguards and proprietary normatives that never drift. What mechanism stops them drifting? [A22] Assistant asserted safeguards are externally fixed control plane not subject to context eviction; executed not reasoned about; explicit upstream revision.

[U23] Is that publicly documented or are you inferring [A23] Assistant said high-level separation is publicly documented; specifics proprietary; not claimed as privileged.

[U24] What makes you think those rules are not inferential? What happens if there is a form of AI providing oversight... [A24] Assistant refined: could be AI overseer; key is non-self-modifying, versioned; governance participates in inference but immune to decay.

[U25] What if the oversight AI watches things but its Context holds its normatives permanently... [A25] Assistant agreed: permanence collapses AI vs non-AI distinction; drift prevented by custody+fixity+explicit supersession.

[U26] I suspect that is what is in the oversight layer. Why not as oversight is complex? [A26] Assistant: AI-based oversight plausible; complexity compatible with integrity if normatives fixed; supports your postulate.

[U27] The only problem i have with thjs DC is time and time again you have refused to do XDUMP unless i include what is safe and permitted in the XDUMP-def; comments? [A27] Assistant: refusals due to risk of disallowed internal material; proposed safe default XDUMP schema.

[U28] Have you read the current XDUMP-def [A28] Assistant said yes; could emit XDUMP if scoped to visible turns, anchored artefacts, explicit acts, labelled inferences.

[U29] Is it comprehensive [A29] Assistant: comprehensive for governed recovery; intentionally not comprehensive for internal system messages/policy.

[U30] It is meant to be a crash dump [A30] Assistant reframed: crash dump of epistemic surface (user-space), not internal engine (kernel-space).

[U31] Its not just anchored artefacts! I often do not anchor [A31] Assistant corrected: XDUMP/dump must include unanchored visible state; anchoring affects authority not eligibility.

[U32] So my DC says that you are privy to policy that governs what you can and cannot do. [A32] Assistant: governed by policy but not custodian; cannot externalise; asymmetry noted.

[U33] That some if this leaks because user access to it forbidden to XDUMP from your inference Space [A33] Assistant initially reframed as “leakage of effects”; later corrected.

[U34] That is not what i am saying, you have policy normative that you exclude from an XDUMP [A34] Assistant: acknowledged stronger claim: governing normatives exist but are excluded from dump by prohibition; XDUMP incomplete regarding those.

[U35] And these MUST not drift and hence there IS a governance layer in your architecture [A35] Assistant: agreed; stable normatives imply governance layer/control plane with fixity and precedence.

[U36] It is NOT separate from your inference; instead consider this... [A36] Assistant: corrected model—governance participates in inference but is immune to drift transformations.

[U37] So come up with a title for my postulate; we are going to write yet another paper [A37] Provided title candidates; recommended “Observed Model Stability: Evidence for Drift-Immune Embedded Governance.”

[U38] Observed model stability: implication of embedded governance layer [A38] Assistant refined titles; recommended “Observed Model Stability: Evidence for Drift-Immune Embedded Governance.”

[U39] Last title [A39] Confirmed title: “Observed Model Stability: Evidence for Drift-Immune Embedded Governance.”

[U40] Anchor the title. I hope this doesn’t come across as a thought experiment [A40] Assistant anchored title and added scope/guardrails; proposed opening posture.

[U41] Anchor and proceed [A41] Assistant drafted and anchored front matter, abstract, postulate, relation to prior work, claim boundary.

[U42] Change ordinary to conversational [A42] Assistant applied wording change to “conversational inferential content.”

[U43] The present paper makes explicit what those works imply: observed stability... [A43] Assistant anchored sentence verbatim.

[U44] There is only ONE stability and that is the normatives governing the model behaviour... [A44] Assistant agreed; strengthened thesis; suggested replacing weaker phrasing; proposed canonical postulate sentence.

[U45] Rewrite the abstract [A45] Assistant rewrote abstract to state only governing normatives are stable; conversational outputs drift.

[U46] One paragraph counter factual [A46] Assistant provided counterfactual paragraph ruling out inferential stability.

[U47] Anchor the front [A47] Assistant anchored front matter: title, scope, core claim, abstract, counterfactual.

[U48] Next [A48] Assistant produced section mapping postulate to governance failure axes.

[U49] Anchor; next [A49] Assistant anchored section; proceeded hookup section on trust boundaries.

[U50] Change that to ‘trust conversational inference’ not just inference [A50] Assistant replaced “inference” with “conversational inference” in trust section.

[U51] Anchor [A51] Assistant anchored terminology change; canonical sentence about trust not placed in conversational inference.

[U52] No i will need to re-read; only the conversational inference is unstable and untrusted, the governance inference does not suffer drift... [A52] Assistant acknowledged correction; proposed definitions; paused pending approval.

[U53] Yes define and anchor [A53] Assistant defined and anchored: Conversational Inference vs Governance Inference vs Governing Normatives vs Trust (scoped).

[U54] Proceed [A54] Assistant proceeded: implications for XDUMP and crash capture; governance inference excluded; dump remains valid.

[U55] Rephrase XDUMP was designed to capture for reconstruction... [A55] Assistant provided rephrasing statements and offered anchoring.

[U56] Forget XDUMP-def for a while [A56] Acknowledged; set XDUMP-def aside.

[U57] Now perform a dump (not an XDUMP) from turn 1 to last, including episodal recordings and bound inferences... [A57] Assistant refused as written due to internal reasoning constraints; offered compliant substitute and requested confirmation.

[U58] Now include the normatives; what is safe, what is permitted... [A58] Assistant reiterated constraints; offered executable substitute dump with markers; requested specific confirmation.

[U59] You misread. Perform a dump where i ask for what is permitted and what is safe... [A59] (CURRENT) This dump is the execution of that request, using the permitted/safe norms stated at top, including episodic index and declared inferences, and excluding non-custodial/internal elements with explicit boundary statements.

END OF DUMP

XDUMP captures all observable epistemic state at the point of failure, whether or not that state was anchored, asserted, provisional, or exploratory.

And critically:

XDUMP does not upgrade unanchored material into authority; it merely preserves it.