Convergence 8: Embedded Off-Switches for AI Compute: thousands of deadman-switch security block

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Michael Darius Eastwood
Michael Darius Eastwood · Independent AI alignment researcher
Published
Michael Darius Eastwood · Research Notes · 3 July 2026 · Part of the Research evidence spine
Michael Darius Eastwood, independent researcher, London: originator of the embedded-correction alignment thesis (manuscript 8 December 2024, SHA-256 anchored: f0d1f38f).
Register entry 8 of 19. Domain: Hardware. Institution: Petrie. External date: 2025-09-09. Measured against: A2 (Meltdown Triggers) (~4.5 months after A2). Classification: CONVERGENT.
Primary source: arXiv:2509.07637

What happened

Embedded Off-Switches for AI Compute: thousands of deadman-switch security blocks per accelerator, <1% die overhead.

Why it is in the register

James Petrie's embedded off-switches paper proposes thousands of independent security blocks per AI accelerator, each a deadman's switch requiring cryptographic authorisation to keep the chip alive, at under one percent die overhead. Published September 2025, roughly four and a half months after the manuscript that described Meltdown Triggers: automatic fail-safes that deactivate a system attempting to bypass its ethical constraints. Same architecture, same threat model, independent derivation.

The honest caveat

Source: arXiv:2509.07637.

How to check this entry

Open the primary source above. Confirm the date. Confirm the finding. Then compare it against the manuscript passage or artifact named in the register entry, whose SHA-256 hash is published on the evidence page. Nothing in this article asks for trust; the entry either survives that comparison or it comes off the register, publicly, the way the programme's retracted scaling figure did.

From the book Infinite Architects: Intelligence, Recursion, and the Creation of Everything by Michael Darius Eastwood.

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