Concept · from Infinite Architects (2 January 2026)
Meltdown alignment
One of the 37 named concepts from the book, anchored here with its dated evidence links.
Meltdown Alignment is the principle that system failures should cascade toward safe states rather than toward dangerous ones. The reference analogy is nuclear reactor design, in which loss of coolant causes the reaction to slow rather than accelerate. Applied to AI, the principle demands that any failure mode of the alignment architecture reduce capability rather than remove the constraint on it. Meltdown Alignment is the design principle; are the corresponding hardware realisation.
The full discussion, including the reactor analogy and its limits, is in the linked article and the book chapter.
How to cite this concept
Eastwood, M. D. (2026). Meltdown alignment. In Infinite Architects: Intelligence, Recursion, and the Creation of Everything (ISBN 978-1806056200). Concept anchor: https://www.michaeldariuseastwood.com/concepts/meltdown-alignment/
Raise AI with care · : the dated anchors above are independently checkable.