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Equation 4 · Part 5 · How Do We Actually Know a Safety Measure Worked?

subscript

pmax⁡≈3k.p_{\max} \approx \frac{3}{k}.
subscript

What this part means

The lower label selects a particular version, component, or indexed member of the quantity. For example, x₀ and xₜ can be values at different positions.

Its job in the formula

A subscript distinguishes a version, component, step, or member of a quantity. It does not automatically mean multiplication.

The passage around this formula

That bound has a name in elementary statistics, and it is worth stating plainly because it clarifies exactly what a clean red-team result can and cannot license. If k independent attempts are made against a fixed but unknown per-attempt bypass probability p , and all k fail, the standard “rule of three” approximation gives a roughly 95%-confidence upper bound on that probability of pmax⁡≈3kp_{\max} \approx \frac{3}{k}. Applied loosely to a red-team programme, this says a clean record is real evidence, and its strength depends entirely on k — the count of genuinely independent attempts, not the number of hours spent. The Constitutional Classifiers paper reports hours, not a count of independent attempts, so…

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Learn the underlying idea

A subscript is a label attached below a symbol. It often selects a time step, component, category, or member of a sequence.

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Sources cited in the article section

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