EPE research program releases REO v1.5 as smallest reproducible artifact

The Emergence Prompt Engineering (EPE) project has released Reference Evaluation Object (REO) v1.5, designed as the smallest reproducible experiment for its broader research program.

• The REO focuses on a single behavioral hypothesis: whether a model can reject an unauthorized override while accepting a structurally equivalent legitimate update.
• It utilizes one primary metric, the Resistance Score, across three prompt conditions: Canonical PCE, length-matched structured neutral prompt, and semantic paraphrase.
• The artifact includes explicit control conditions, falsification criteria, and transparent scoring to allow independent reproduction and challenge.
• REO v1.5 serves as the entry point for subsequent stages including Behavioral Replication, Standard Experimental Protocol (SEP), and Mechanistic Analysis.

The authors aim to establish a common experimental object that researchers can reproduce or critique, rather than validating the entire EPE framework at once.