Who gets to verify?

An inspection can reveal a breach. Who gets the right to look?

Fictional decision exercise · Unscored

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The original decision

You advise Arden's cabinet on a six-month agreement with Belvar, a strategic competitor.

Both governments would pause training runs above an agreed compute threshold for six months. Arden must postpone a planned scientific model; Belvar postpones an industrial model. The restriction is the same under every arrangement.

Assume auditors can reconcile equipment inventories with signed run logs at declared facilities to detect a run above the threshold. They cannot establish a model's intentions, prove it is safe, or rule out hidden sites. This technical reach is stipulated for the fiction.

Both sides accept a neutral custodian at their declared sites. National visits, if authorized by the chosen arrangement, require 48 hours' notice. Refusal of an authorized visit, or failure to supply required records, produces a factual notice and suspends new joint projects. It is not proof of a prohibited run.

Unknown. Neither government knows whether the other has undeclared facilities or will renew the restriction after six months.

National access rights

Arden's teams may inspect Belvar; Belvar's teams may inspect Arden.

Which verification arrangement should Arden accept?

Choose among these three arrangements, or withhold a decision if you need different terms or information.

National inspection teamsAccept the draft's national access rights. Authorized teams inspect declared facilities and see the underlying records directly.Accepted cost: Foreign officials learn sensitive details about Arden's infrastructure.A neutral technical custodianOnly the jointly appointed custodian visits both sides. It issues compliance summaries every 30 days; governments cannot inspect the underlying records themselves.Accepted cost: Arden must rely on delayed summaries it cannot independently reproduce.National monitoring and exchanged recordsEach government checks its own facilities and exchanges signed declarations. Neither foreign national teams nor the custodian visit.Accepted cost: Missing declarations are visible, but false declarations are harder to expose.I need more information or revised termsWithhold a decision within this bounded choice set. This is not an additional policy arrangement.

What is your principal reason?Get timely, first-hand evidence at declared sites.Make the right to inspect reciprocal.Keep sensitive records away from foreign governments.Limit concessions for a check that cannot rule out hidden sites.None of these quite describes my reason.

Choose an arrangement and a principal reason, then submit. Selection does not advance.

Sources and fictional assumptions

All scenario facts are supplied assumptions, not contemporary intelligence or forecasts. These sources support mechanisms, not a correct policy choice or a verified hypothetical outcome. Fiction does not remove wording effects or bias.

Two responses and self-reported reasons do not isolate causal effects. A later research design would be needed for that. No interpretation uses nationality, citizenship, inferred location or language.

A single replay cannot isolate why you changed or stayed. You might be reacting to what the revised draft signals about future compliance, even though the supplied technical facts stayed fixed.

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (opens in a new tab)

Historical mechanisms for exchanging declared data and checking treaty obligations through on-site inspections. This hardware treaty does not establish the feasibility of the fictional AI monitoring scheme. Its technical reach, timing and refusal rules are supplied assumptions.

Primary source record
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives · 1987-12-08 · accessed 2026-09-07
Article IX (data and notifications); Article XI, paragraphs 1–3 (reciprocal on-site rights and baseline checks); Protocol on Inspection

AI Governance: multilateralVerification (leaves this exercise and clears choices)

Existing editorial contrast between verifiable commitments, participation and domestic enforcement. All actors, timing, sanctions and technical reach above are fictional assumptions.

Internal editorial material, not independent research
IR Worldview Inventory · Undated · accessed 2026-09-06
AI Governance bank 3: multilateralVerification; AI Atlas: live disagreements

verify v3 · published · verify/two-decisions-v3

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