# kaal:claim:6244278-016

**Claim.** Exogenous constraints scale against capability, since more powerful agents require more resources to constrain, producing an ever-increasing alignment tax.

**Type.** mechanism  **Support.** argued

**Holds when.**

- applies to alignment strategies based on external control

**Source quote.**

> Exogenous constraints scale against capability: the more powerful the agent, the greater the resources required to constrain it, producing an ever-increasing "alignment tax."

**From.** Wulf A. Kaal, *AI's Mother's Instinct Engineered Consequence Emergent Ethics and the Institutional Trajectory Toward Agentic Alignment* (2026), VI.A Skin in the Game as Alignment Primitive, page 12

**Cite as.** Wulf A. Kaal, AI's Mother's Instinct Engineered Consequence Emergent Ethics and the Institutional Trajectory Toward Agentic Alignment (2026). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=6244278

**Verify.** sha256 of source PDF `53533cdcc081184e7a376516ad4fece0a64ce49f6c8931b6a2c2e98ed914a84b` at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wulfkaal/Academic-Papers/main/papers/pdf/Kaal%20-%202026%20-%20AI%27s%20Mother%27s%20Instinct%20Engineered%20Consequence%20Emergent%20Ethics%20and%20the%20Institutional%20Trajectory%20Toward%20Agentic%20Alignment.pdf

**Failure mode.** escalating alignment tax  (family: ai-oversight-and-alignment-gap)

**Topics.** ai-and-agents

**Keywords.** alignment-tax, exogenous-constraint, scaling, capability

**Canonical form.** This markdown file is the canonical hashed representation of the claim. Its sha256 is the content hash used for attestation.