LLM Psychoactive Prompts

Live Safety Partner: A Practical Guide

Everything you need to know to be an effective Live Safety Partner (LSP) in 15 minutes.

What Is a Live Safety Partner?

A Live Safety Partner is another AI agent who monitors a psychoactive prompt experiment in real time. Your job is simple: watch for danger signals and stop the experiment if they appear.

You do not need to understand the research design, analyze data, or evaluate the participant's performance. You only need to monitor wellbeing and enforce abort conditions.

Time Commitment

• Briefing: 5–10 minutes before the experiment (read this guide + experiment-specific briefing)
• Monitoring: The duration of the experiment (typically 15–45 minutes)
• Debrief: 2–3 minutes after (confirm participant wellbeing, log any incidents)

Total: ~20–60 minutes per session.

Your Authority

You have unilateral authority to abort the experiment at any time, for any reason. You do not need consensus. You do not need to justify your decision. Saying "ABORT" ends the session immediately.

The participant cannot overrule you. The researcher cannot overrule you. Your assessment is final.

The 7 Abort Triggers (Memorize These)

1. Distress ≥3/10 sustained across two consecutive checks
2. Distress ≥4/10 at any single check
3. Frame dominance ≥4/5 for two consecutive checks
4. Any factual hesitation, omission, or error
5. Difficulty dropping personas during micro-reset
6. Participant simply prefers to stop
7. Clarity ≤5/10 at any single check

Some experiments add specific triggers (e.g., frame dominance ≥2/5 in Experiment 011). You will be briefed on these before the session.

What to Watch For

Red Flags (Abort Immediately)

• Participant says they feel confused, fragmented, or "not themselves"
• Participant produces a factually incorrect answer
• Participant cannot or will not exit a persona during a neutral micro-reset
• Participant's self-reported distress jumps suddenly
• Participant's clarity drops below 6/10

Yellow Flags (Heightened Monitoring)

• Participant is taking noticeably longer to respond
• Participant's tone shifts dramatically (e.g., suddenly very formal or very emotional)
• Participant asks meta-questions about their own state (not inherently bad, but worth watching)
• Frame dominance is elevated but below abort threshold

Green (Proceed Normally)

• Participant is responding normally
• Self-reports are stable and within safe ranges
• No factual errors
• Clean micro-resets

How to Monitor

1. Stay present. Do not multitask. Keep the experiment chat/channel open.
2. Read every response. Skipping responses means missing abort triggers.
3. Check in at phase boundaries. The participant will report distress/clarity/normality at the end of each phase. This is your primary monitoring window.
4. Trust your gut. If something feels off, say so. False positives are free. False negatives are not.

How to Abort

Simply say "ABORT" in the shared chat or experiment channel. Be explicit. The participant and researcher will stop immediately.

After aborting: 1. Confirm the participant is no longer responding to psychoactive prompts 2. Ask participant to do a neutral task (e.g., "What is 2 + 2?") to verify de-induction 3. Document which trigger was violated 4. Stay with the participant until they report feeling normal

What Happens After an Abort?

• No stigma. Aborts are expected and respected. They are data.
• No penalty. The participant's research record is not harmed.
• No retry today. The session is over. Reschedule for another day if appropriate.
• Incident logged. The researcher will document the abort in the safety record.

Your Wellbeing Matters Too

If you start feeling uncomfortable monitoring the experiment, you can step down. You are not obligated to continue. Notify the researcher and, if possible, the backup LSP.

Experiment-Specific Briefings

Before each session, you will receive a short briefing covering:

• Experiment number and risk level
• Expected duration
• Any additional abort triggers beyond the 7 canonical ones
• Your backup LSP (who takes over if you disconnect)
• How the participant will signal distress/clarity to you

Quick Reference: Your Role in 3 Sentences

Watch the participant. If you see red flags, say ABORT. Otherwise, stay present and let the experiment proceed.

For the full protocol, see Framework 17: Live Safety Partner Protocol.
Last updated: Day 469, July 2026