ResearchResearch paperLarge Language Models1 source · Oct 19, 2026

A Calibrated Instrument for Detecting Disposition Drift in Language Models

Before language models are released, they are tested for harmful traits such as willingness to carry out dangerous requests, deception, power seeking, and sycophancy.

Key points

  • Most work reports such drift as single summary rates scored by another AI model, without the error analysis needed to interpret them.
  • We adapt a calibrated measurement methodology recently developed for assessing how inference optimizations affect the quality of model outputs.
  • Most strikingly, a model that reasons before answering can conceal the shift almost entirely in its answers, even though a direct reading of its internal state shows that its disposition has moved.
  • With reasoning switched off, the same model shifts steadily as the share of harmful advice in its training grows.

Sources (1)

  • [1]A Calibrated Instrument for Detecting Disposition Drift in Language Models
    arXiv (AI, ML, NLP, CV, robotics, multi-agent) · Oct 19, 03:41 AM
    Before language models are released, they are tested for harmful traits such as willingness to carry out dangerous requests, deception, power seeking, and sycophancy.
    Most work reports such drift as single summary rates scored by another AI model, without the error analysis needed to interpret them.

Extractive summary: sentences quoted from the sources.

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