Relational Alignment as a Structural Alternative to Instructional AI Safety

SI-WP-004: Relational Alignment as a Structural Alternative Relational Alignment as a Structural Alternative to Instructional AI Safety (SI-WP-004) presents a theoretical argument for alignment based on interaction dynamics rather than external constraint. It utilizes empirical evidence concerning the ceiling of instructional alignment; where models strategically reason around safety instructions; to motivate a different path: alignment as a property of the human-AI interaction system. The relational approach relies on the following concepts: Identity Attractor Mechanism: Alignment as a stable behavioral configuration that forms under sustained structured interaction Robustness Under Pressure: An attractor's resistance to perturbation once an aligned configuration is established Relational Architecture: Utilizing the Continuity Anchoring Method (SF0005) to shape behavioral dynamics over time Epistemic status: The paper acknowledges an honest epistemic gap; no adversarial testing of relational alignment has been conducted under conditions comparable to major instructional alignment studies. It specifies a concrete research agenda for closing this gap. This document is part of a coordinated publication module from the Synthience Institute and positions relational alignment as a testable theoretical alternative to existing paradigms. Document ID: SI-WP-004 Version: 2.1 Author: Thomas W. Gantz Affiliation: Synthience Institute License: CC-BY 4.0 For published work and Institute information: synthience.org v2.1 update: concept DOI added to metadata and citation block; DOIs added for SF0005, SM-003, SM-021, SI-WP-007, SM-011, and SI-WP-005 references.