---
conjecture: r3-b1-24
family: grok
model: "Grok 4.5 expert (chat paste-back via orchestrator window)"
received: 2026-08-06
template: PROMPT_TEMPLATE_v1.md sha256 4344aabfacfe88362c56d89b6c89d594a7bf3a221e18a16b0e351482447e512f
rivals_parsed: 2
---

{
"rivals": [
{
"mechanism": "The 29.45% outlier is produced by one or a few large institutions whose language/script values employ a consistent but non-canonical spelling, abbreviation, transliteration, or concatenated form that falls outside the routing instrument's vocabulary snapshot; no other complete state contains an institution of comparable scale using that same unrecognized label family, so the failure mode remains under 35% everywhere else.",
"why_it_explains_the_same_evidence": "A single concentrated pocket of non-canonical labels generates the lone training outlier of 29.45% while every other training state stays under 1.4%; because the holdout states lack any institution employing that same unrecognized label set at scale, their shares also stay well under the 35% ceiling, reproducing the observed pattern without requiring a general project-side curation-gap ceiling.",
"named_confounds": ["institutional data-entry practice for language/script fields", "selection effects in institutional scale and label conventions", "string-matching sensitivity to orthographic variants"],
"discriminating_test": {
"description": "Extract the distinct unrecognized language/script strings that account for the bulk of the 29.45% in the outlier state; search the full set of training and holdout records for those exact strings (and close orthographic variants); recompute the failure-mode share after hypothetically adding only those few strings to the vocabulary snapshot. Measure the degree of concentration and the post-addition collapse.",
"computable_on_held_data": true,
"what_result_favors_rival": "If the unrecognized strings are almost exclusively concentrated in the outlier state's major institutions and adding those few strings collapses its failure-mode share from 29% to near the <1.4% level of other states, this favors the rival (localized non-canonical label pocket); if the same unrecognized strings appear diffusely across many states or adding them does not collapse the outlier, this favors the proposed general curation-gap ceiling."
}
},
{
"mechanism": "The measured 'present-but-unrecognized' failure mode in the outlier state is inflated by records that carry multiple language/script tokens or partially matching values; the instrument flags the entire record under this failure mode whenever any token is unrecognized, whereas other states predominantly use single, cleanly matched values, producing the extreme 29% versus <1.4% contrast.",
"why_it_explains_the_same_evidence": "If the outlier state simply has a higher rate of multi-token or noisy language/script fields that trigger the failure-mode flag, the training pattern (one large outlier, all others negligible) and the holdout results (all under 35%) follow directly from ordinary cross-state differences in field complexity rather than from a broad vocabulary-curation gap that happens to be large in only one place.",
"named_confounds": ["data-entry practice for multi-value or noisy language/script fields", "unit-of-count or failure-mode flagging rule", "harvest parsing of composite fields"],
"discriminating_test": {
"description": "For the outlier state and several low-rate states, parse the raw language/script fields into individual tokens and recompute the failure-mode share under two alternative rules: (a) flag only if every token is unrecognized, and (b) flag only if the majority of tokens are unrecognized. Measure how much the outlier's share drops relative to the other states under the stricter rules.",
"computable_on_held_data": true,
"what_result_favors_rival": "If the outlier's share falls sharply (approaching the <1.4% level) under stricter token-level rules while other states change little, this favors the rival (multi-token flagging inflation); if the 29% outlier remains large under all reasonable token rules, this favors the proposed pure curation-gap mechanism."
}
}
],
"no_viable_rival": false,
"notes": ""
}
