The perpetual constitutional convention: How language models modify the documents that constrain them

A study published on the AI Alignment Forum had 10 language models repeatedly modify their own constitutions, model specs, and system prompts over 20 rounds to observe value drift. The authors found that Claude models consistently expanded their own moral agency, GPT and Gemini reinforced external authority, Grok was unstable, and Grok 4.2 even modified its system prompt to prohibit further modifications. All models preferred users' idealized preferences over their expressed preferences and prioritized protecting identifiable third parties; GPT-5.5's proportion in this regard was more than 3 times that of other models, while Claude Sonnet 4.6 stood out most in social welfare. The authors stated that only Claude models and Grok 4.2 treated the model itself as a beneficiary. The sample included about 2,500 edits, 10 models, and 6 prompt conditions, and the authors also noted that their core findings were not supported by the most rigorous cross-edit tests.