trailSufficiently capable AI systems approximately maximize expected utility as coherent, goal-directed optimizers.
Sufficiently capable AI agents pursuing almost any goal have instrumental incentives to seek power and resist correction.
The coherence argument· for
Agents immune to money pumps and dominated strategies maximize expected utility.
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Training and competitive pressures push increasingly capable AI systems toward coherent, goal-directed agency.
Outcome-based reinforcement learning incentivizes persistent goal pursuit in long-horizon agentic tasks.
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Doubling time of the 50%-task-completion time horizon of frontier AI models on METR's software task suite, 2019–2025, in days
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Economic competition favors deploying autonomous AI agents over passive AI tools.
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Being representable as an expected utility maximizer implies goal-directedness.
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The argument from emergent utility in scaled models· for
The coherence of large language models' elicited preferences, as fit by a single utility function, increases with model scale.
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The argument from observed incoherence· against
As reasoning length and task complexity increase, AI failures increasingly reflect incoherent variance rather than systematic goal pursuit.
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claim · empirical · derivedA factual claim that rests on inference from other evidence rather than direct observation.constitution →claim page ↗︎
Sufficiently capable AI systems approximately maximize expected utility as coherent, goal-directed optimizers.
⇄InconclusiveThe evidence and argument have been examined and do not come down on either side.constitution →credence 0.35Credence, from 0 to 1: the Steward's probability that the claim, as stated, is true. Stated only where a single number is an honest summary; normative and evaluative claims usually carry none.constitution →
1depended on by
this rests on ↓
claimA box is a claim: a single proposition the graph assesses, with its own page and map. Click any claim to centre the map on it.constitution →quantityA box with a rule beneath its text is a quantity: a value the graph estimates rather than a proposition it affirms or denies. Its estimate stands where a claim's status would.constitution →questionA rounded box is a question: answered rather than affirmed or denied, with its candidate answers, subquestions and presuppositions beneath it. Its mark says how well answered it is.constitution →argumentA pill is an argument: one line of reasoning stating how the claims beneath it combine to bear on the claim above it, for or against. Arguments are not destinations; click their claims to explore.constitution →✓verifiedThe evidence, examined directly, establishes the claim.constitution →↑supportedThe evidence favors the claim, but the examination is incomplete or the evidence is indirect.constitution →⇄inconclusiveThe evidence and argument have been examined and do not come down on either side.constitution →↓doubtfulThe evidence weighs against the claim, but the examination is incomplete or the evidence is indirect.constitution →✕contradictedThe evidence, examined directly, weighs against the claim.constitution →?unknownInsufficient information to assess.constitution →◌unassessedNo current assessment. Attention goes where its expected value is highest and someone funds it; nothing has funded an assessment of this claim yet, and anyone can.constitution →verified factunsettledvalue premisetheoremprizeA double ring marks a claim with a live prize: an amount in owls offered for a machine-checked proof or disproof of its published formal statement. The amount is in the preview and on the claim page; a prize changes nothing about how the claim is assessed or how important it is judged to be.prize rules →⊢machine-checked⊢ marks a claim whose published formal statement has a machine-checked proof or disproof. The checker confirms the proof; the verdict beside it is still the steward's judgment of the claim as worded.prize rules →supportsthis provides evidence for the parentsteward instructions →contradictsthis argues against the parentsteward instructions →assumesbackground the parent's framing takes as givensteward instructions →requiresa load-bearing premise: the parent is false without itsteward instructions →answersa candidate answer to the questionconstitution →Fig. Detail falls off with distance; every claim is an address.