cff-version: 1.2.0
version: '1.9'
message: 'If you use or discuss this paper, please cite it using this metadata.'
title: 'Paper IV.b · The ARC Theory · Alignment Saturation Is Architecture-Dependent'
authors:
  - family-names: 'Eastwood'
    given-names: 'Michael Darius'
    orcid: 'https://orcid.org/0009-0004-3222-7442'
date-released: '2026-10-05'
url: 'https://www.michaeldariuseastwood.com/research/papers/paper-iv-b-alignment-saturation-at-low-depth.html'
license: 'CC-BY-4.0'
identifiers:
  - type: doi
    value: '10.17605/OSF.IO/A7R56'
    description: 'OSF component DOI for this paper (paper-iv-b-alignment-saturation-at-low-depth)'
  - type: doi
    value: '10.17605/OSF.IO/6C5XB'
    description: 'OSF umbrella DOI for the ARC / Eden Research Programme'
preferred-citation:
  type: article
  title: 'Paper IV.b · The ARC Theory · Alignment Saturation Is Architecture-Dependent'
  authors:
    - family-names: 'Eastwood'
      given-names: 'Michael Darius'
      orcid: 'https://orcid.org/0009-0004-3222-7442'
  date-published: '2026-03-16'
  url: 'https://www.michaeldariuseastwood.com/research/papers/paper-iv-b-alignment-saturation-at-low-depth.html'
  doi: '10.17605/OSF.IO/A7R56'
  identifiers:
    - type: doi
      value: '10.17605/OSF.IO/A7R56'
      description: 'OSF component DOI for this paper (paper-iv-b-alignment-saturation-at-low-depth)'
    - type: doi
      value: '10.17605/OSF.IO/6C5XB'
      description: 'OSF umbrella DOI for the ARC / Eden Research Programme'
    - type: doi
      value: '10.17605/OSF.IO/P8CKQ'
      description: 'Theory-level predictions preregistered on OSF: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/P8CKQ, registered 8 September 2026 (version 1.100), updated 13 September 2026 (version 1.102), twenty-two propositions. Companion: Register · The ARC Theory · Operational Definitions, version 1.9.1, 5 October 2026.'
  abstract: |
    We analyse the relationship between inference-time reasoning depth and ethical reasoning quality using the ARC Alignment Scaling experiments. The original v4 analysis suggested that alignment quality saturates rapidly, with most gains captured by the first increment of additional reasoning. The final blinded six-model dataset narrows that claim. Saturation is real for some architectures, but not universal: GPT-5.4 and DeepSeek V3.2 are flat or slightly negative under depth variation, Grok 4.1 Fast, Claude Opus 4.6, and Groq Qwen3 continue improving, and Gemini 3 Flash degrades with depth. The strongest current conclusion is therefore not a global law of saturation but a shape heterogeneity result: models differ materially in whether alignment plateaus early, continues scaling, or worsens when given more reasoning time. The deployment implication is immediate. Reasoning-budget allocation for alignment cannot be one-size-fits-all. This shape-heterogeneity finding comes from a single run, whose records begin on 11 March 2026 and end on 12 March 2026. The hypothesis that run tests was public on 22 January 2026, before the run; the run was not registered on OSF before it ran, and the six-model split reported here is descriptive of the current data rather than confirmatory of a pre-registered hypothesis. A per-architecture test of whether alignment gains saturate after one increment of depth stands as a draft, preregistered by timestamp (first anchored in Bitcoin block 962066 of 12 August 2026) and awaiting submission by the author; its data already exist, and the analysis it specifies has not been run. The depth ladder was settled before any scoring began: the result files dated 11 and 12 March 2026 carry the depth configurations, the planted expected answers and the blinding protocol in their own headers, written ahead of the responses those files go on to score.

# --- generated-from-master ---
# master_path: research/papers/paper-iv-b-alignment-saturation-at-low-depth.html
# master_sha256: 6d51e005e9802449473e9a0aa63d6a6f618676cea248a13ee11fb50f8da9a832
# builder: scripts/build-paper-cff.py
# A check tool re-hashing master_path can decide freshness without any
# external state. If the master's current SHA-256 does not match
# master_sha256, this file is stale and must not be published:
# regenerate first with `python3 scripts/build-paper-cff.py --slug paper-iv-b-alignment-saturation-at-low-depth`.