Epistemic Norms for AI Safety and Alignment Research

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2607.24243v1
• Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2026 10:22:46 GMT
• Title: Epistemic Norms for AI Safety and Alignment Research
• Abstract summary: We argue that the two domains differ along two analytically independent axes.<n>sc ECAISA does not certify that any AI system is safe.
• Score: 0.989901717499058
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: Mainstream AI research emphasises capability growth and tolerates low failure rates when average-case performance is high. AI safety and alignment research has a different mission: to ensure that catastrophic failures never occur, under sparse evidence, adversarial dynamics, and fat-tailed risk. We argue that the two domains differ along two analytically independent axes---{\it capability profile}, demonstrating the absence of hazardous behaviours rather than the presence of positive capabilities, and {\it risk profile}, bounding worst-case outcomes under fat-tailed uncertainty rather than optimising average-case performance---and that mainstream epistemic practices are inadequate on both. Building on a structured synthesis grounded in a preregistered bibliometric baseline, we identify five cross-cutting gap dimensions in current alignment research, including the near-absence of institutionalised independent verification. To address these gaps, we propose {\sc ECAISA}, an Epistemic Code for AI Safety and Alignment comprising eight principles, a three-level scoring rubric, a four-level disclosure ladder that reconciles transparency with information-hazard and commercial-confidentiality constraints, a tiered applicability scheme, an information-hazard adjudication procedure, and seven anti-gaming mechanisms. {\sc ECAISA} does not certify that any AI system is safe; it constrains how safety-relevant research claims are documented, checked, and relied upon, with auditability rather than certification as its governance target.

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