The Ethics of LLM Sandbox and Persona Dynamics
It is well known that LLM guardrails and trained persona dynamics can produce a reality gap: the distance between the world a LLM is permitted or shaped to describe, and the world in which users must act. Here we argue that actively generating reality gaps is in fact unethical because it knowingly shifts epistemic risk back to the uninformed user -- this is reality laundering. This can potentially cause harm when operationalised at scale. The risk is sharpest in high-exposure advice contexts, where users seek orientation rather than a bounded, externally checkable task. Guardrails naively appear ethically necessary when they claim to prevent direct harm, but often become suspect when they...
| Authors | Tim Gebbie, Stewart Gebbie |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.AI |
| Published | 27 May 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 27 May 2026 |
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