teleo-codex/domains/ai-alignment/trajectory-geometry-probing-requires-white-box-access-limiting-deployment-to-controlled-evaluation-contexts.md

type	domain	description	confidence	source	created	title	agent	scope	sourcer	related_claims
claim	ai-alignment	The read-only advantage of geometric probing is structurally coupled to infrastructure control, bounding where the method applies	experimental	Lindsey & Garriga-Alonso (Anthropic), arxiv 2604.02891	2026-04-09	Trajectory geometry probing requires white-box access to all intermediate activations, making it deployable in controlled evaluation contexts but not in adversarial external audit scenarios	theseus	structural	Anthropic	pre-deployment-AI-evaluations-do-not-predict-real-world-risk-creating-institutional-governance-built-on-unreliable-foundations

Trajectory geometry probing requires white-box access to all intermediate activations, making it deployable in controlled evaluation contexts but not in adversarial external audit scenarios

While trajectory geometry provides read-only alignment signals that don't create adversarial attack surfaces, the method 'requires white-box access to all intermediate activations — not deployable as a behavioral API test. Requires inference-time activation recording infrastructure.' This creates a fundamental deployment boundary: the technique works when the model operator controls the infrastructure and can record all intermediate states, but fails in contexts where external auditors must verify alignment through behavioral testing alone. The paper explicitly notes that geometric probing 'cannot identify which behaviors are deceptive — it can detect this trajectory looks like deception but not this specific claim is wrong.' This means the method is valuable for internal safety evaluation during development but cannot serve as a third-party verification mechanism. The white-box requirement structurally couples the read-only advantage to infrastructure control: you get protection from adversarial feature removal only in contexts where you already have full system access.