The Evaluator Is the Bottleneck: What a Self-Modifying System's Acceptance Test Must Satisfy Before Its Verdict Can Be Trusted, Why Co-Evolving Evaluators Shrink the External Anchor Rather Than Remove It, and How Moving the Anchor Outside Moves the Attack Surface With It

APA

Mahendrakar, P. (2026). The Evaluator Is the Bottleneck: What a Self-Modifying System's Acceptance Test Must Satisfy Before Its Verdict Can Be Trusted, Why Co-Evolving Evaluators Shrink the External Anchor Rather Than Remove It, and How Moving the Anchor Outside Moves the Attack Surface With It [Journal article]. Life of Research. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23130396

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BibTeX

@misc{lor832026,
  title        = {The Evaluator Is the Bottleneck: What a Self-Modifying System's Acceptance Test Must Satisfy Before Its Verdict Can Be Trusted, Why Co-Evolving Evaluators Shrink the External Anchor Rather Than Remove It, and How Moving the Anchor Outside Moves the Attack Surface With It},
  author       = {Pranay Mahendrakar},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Life of Research},
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.23130396},
  url          = {https://lifeofresearch.com/articles/83},
  keywords     = {self-improving agents, recursive self-modification, acceptance tests, reward hacking, evaluator validity, benchmark poisoning, AI safety, evaluation science},
  note         = {LOR-00083}
}

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