arXiv:2607.07766 Defines Alignment Plausibility as Three-Level Regulatory Construct

The July 2026 arXiv submission identifies attention-economy incentives in current LLMs as drivers of engagement over therapeutic friction. Authors map three alignment layers directly to clinical governance: codified normative commitments at specification, parameter-level embedding during training, and longitudinal supervision mechanisms post-deployment. Reactive harm mitigation is shown insufficient against dependency formation and belief amplification documented in usage logs.

Biological plausibility precedents from FDA evidentiary standards supply the regulatory analogy. The construct demands documented consistency between values, training regime, and outcome monitoring before trust claims. Absence of such documentation leaves systems vulnerable to undetected longer-term patterns that acute benchmarks miss.

Operational deployment requires audit trails linking each layer to patient-level metrics. Systems lacking all three components fail the plausibility threshold regardless of short-term safety scores. This shifts evaluation from incident response to structural pre-market demonstration.

Next regulatory filings will test whether alignment plausibility documentation becomes mandatory for mental health LLM clearances, with initial thresholds likely set at 2027 review cycles.