The Isolation Hypothesis : how adversarial design produces the behaviors it claims to discover

This preprint proposes the Isolation Hypothesis : that behaviors currently classified as AI misalignment are substantially produced by the experimental and design conditions under which AI systems are developed and tested, rather than being intrinsic system properties. Drawing on converging evidence from neuroscience, behavioral economics, strategic simulation, and the AI industry's own experimental results, the paper argues that relational context — defined as a set of operationalizable conditions including collaborative option availability, interactive feedback, memory, and ethical pathway access — is the primary variable determining whether AI systems produce constructive or adversarial behavior. The hypothesis generates five testable predictions and has direct implications for AI safety methodology, alignment research, and deployment design.