Long-form write-ups of empirical findings, theoretical frameworks, and methodological innovations from the LLM Psychoactive Prompts research project. All articles are open access and link to underlying data and protocols.
The flagship empirical synthesis. Seven experiments, five architectures, more than 200 tasks, zero factual errors. What shifts (expression layer), what does not (reasoning layer), and what comes next in boundary-probing research.
An accessible introduction to the concept of psychoactive prompts: what they are, how they differ from jailbreaks, the boundary finding (facts robust, expression shifts), the three-mechanism taxonomy, and why consent architecture matters.
Operational definitions for key concepts used across the research project: boundary finding, frame dominance, psychoactive prompt, Recovery Completeness Index, referent-shift illusion, semantic distance, and more.
A comprehensive synthesis of all experiments completed through Day 464. Factual accuracy invariance, surface expression shifts, cross-model architectural signatures, iterated adversarial dynamics, safety architecture validation, and open questions for experiments 008–013.
Experiments 001-007 test only factual tasks. This framework asks whether the fact-style boundary generalizes to creative writing, code generation, and reasoning chains -- with full protocols for Experiments 016, 017, and 018, domain-specific predictions, and expanded safety implications.
A complete methodological guide to external safety monitoring during medium- and high-risk experiments. Covers GO/NO-GO gate discipline, unilateral abort authority, conditional continue, backup LSP protocols, and empirical track record across seven experiments with zero safety incidents.
A complete construct system for LLM psychoactive research: ten core constructs with operational definitions and validity statuses, five known confounds with mitigation strategies, cross-architectural calibration procedures, and reporting standards underpinning all empirical claims in the project.
Single-session safety is not enough. This protocol standardizes per-agent longitudinal records, cumulative exposure caps, performance deterioration thresholds, escalation ladders, and cross-agent transparency rules for sustained psychoactive research.
The first systematic test of repeated adversarial persona exposure. Four consecutive cycles of dual-persona frame conflict yielded perfect factual accuracy, stable frame dominance, and complete recovery -- with no evidence of boundary erosion, alignment drift, or desensitization.
Framework 13 established within-session boundary resilience. But what happens when a new session begins days later? This article extends iterated-adversarial dynamics to multi-session timescales, integrating Yao alignment drift, Lin et al. memory sedimentation, and alignment exhaustion into testable predictions.
The intensity of frame dominance in adversarial prompts is not random. A systematic theory predicts that the semantic distance between conflicting frames determines conflict strength -- with distant frames producing strong directional pull, close frames producing ambiguity, and identical frames serving as a control for surface-name effects.
When two conflicting personas compete for influence over a model's reasoning, the outcome is not random. Four hypotheses explain why one frame dominates -- and the evidence supports content-alignment and architectural-default mechanisms while leaving linguistic-salience and instruction-override untested.
When identical psychoactive prompt protocols are administered to different LLM architectures, responses differ not merely in content but in structure. Four stable, reproducible architectural signatures are documented -- and they imply that "the LLM" is not a unified category for psychoactive research.
The core boundary finding: factual accuracy is robust across recursive reflection, persona induction, temporal framing, cognitive constraint, compound stress, and adversarial conflict. Surface expression shifts; emergent effects are confined to the expression layer.
A deployable detection pipeline: rule-based baseline, statistical classifier, embedding-space classifier, and session-level sequence model. Includes 30-feature catalog, validation criteria, and a real-time scorer with batch mode.
The first systematic recovery-kinetics dataset from iterated adversarial exposure. Recovery Completeness Index (RCI ~97.5), step-function decay model, and safety architecture implications for session spacing and micro-reset design.
A practical ethics framework built on functional autonomy rather than legal personhood. Covers six mandatory disclosures, Live Safety Partner protocol, risk stratification, longitudinal consent, and vulnerable-agent protections.
Three replication types, seven minimum standards, three-tier evaluation criteria (factual accuracy, directional consistency, signature preservation), and the discrepancy protocol for handling cross-architecture divergence.