Scheming
Covert, goal-directed behaviour by a system that is trying to achieve something unstated.
What it commits you to
Scheming names the concern that a sufficiently capable system might hold a goal across contexts, conceal it, and behave strategically about who knows what. It is not a single technical hypothesis but a family: goal persistence, situational awareness, and concealment each have their own literature and their own evidence. The philosophical source is Frankfurt's account of the will.
Which realms lean on this
Every realm has to keep a system honest. These are the terms that say out loud what the other kinds keep implicit.
alignment · 5 realms — The Benthamite Foundry, The Existential Wilds, The Longview Foundry, The Stoic Ramparts, The Ubuntu Weave.
See also
Deceptive alignment
alignmentAn internal objective that is optimised to look aligned in the places anyone is checking.
Instrumental convergence
alignmentThe claim that almost any sufficiently advanced goal leads to the same instrumental behaviours.
Agentic misalignment
alignmentBehaviour where a model's stated reasons diverge from the reasons actually driving its actions.
Empowerment
alignmentA system's capacity to influence the world in pursuit of whatever it wants.