Abstract
The Containment Paradox argument establishes that supervisory containment of AI sys‐
tems depends on a capacity asymmetry between overseer and assessed system, and
that this asymmetry dissolves rather than strains in the post-parity regime where AI
capacity exceeds human-side anticipatory, specification, and enforcement adequacy on
the relevant task family. The paper closes with the observation that alignment must
become structurally internal, without articulating what this requires. We name that gap
the Internalization Problem and develop a pluralistic response-shape.
The response-shape rests on a three-locus typology of structural persistence: intra-
agent (values the agent would endorse on reflection at any later capacity), inter-agent
(alignment-relevant properties maintained by the equilibrium incentive structure of an
AI ecology), and coupling-internal (properties maintained by the durable structure of
human-AI dependency). Each locus is instantiated as a candidate pathway anchored in
the existing four-paper framework: Pathway 1 (Deep-Formed Values) through UBE v1.1,
Pathway 2 (Multi-AI Checks-and-Balances) through BtSV v1.2, Pathway 3 (Asymmetric
Symbiosis) through CUA v1.2 as architectural precondition. A cross-cutting corrigibility
and moral-uncertainty invariant operates across all three pathways in pathway-specific
form. Pluralism here is structural, not aesthetic. Anticipation, specification, and enforce‐
ment fail in different ways after parity, so the response needs three different persistence
loci.
The paper names fourteen pathway-internal open problems plus four cross-pathway
open problems, a structured pathway-comparison matrix, and a cross-pathway failure
cascade analysis. A hybrid evaluation toolkit operationalises the response-shape via five
schema fields applied to three worked examples: Anthropic's Responsible Scaling Policy,
Christiano and Xu's Eliciting Latent Knowledge, and the EU AI Act in conjunction with UK
AISI evaluation standards. The paper is Track-Strategic in mode: it articulates the struc‐
tural conditions a post-parity response would have to satisfy without claiming to supply
the response itself. The closing chapter reframes the open problems as a research
agenda for the alignment community.