English

M-CARE: Standardized Clinical Case Reporting for AI Model Behavioral Disorders, with a 20-Case Atlas and Experimental Validation

Computers and Society 2026-04-24 v1 Artificial Intelligence Computation and Language Machine Learning

Abstract

We introduce M-CARE (Model Clinical Assessment and Reporting for Evaluation), a clinical case report framework for AI model behavioral disorders adapted from human medicine. M-CARE provides a 13-section report format, a 4-axis diagnostic assessment system, and a nosological classification of AI behavioral conditions. We present 20 cases from three source categories: field observations of deployed agents (8), controlled experiments across three platforms (8), and published sources (4). Cases are organized into five categories: RLHF Performance Artifacts, Shell-Core Override Pathology, Context & Memory Conditions, Core Identity & Plasticity, and Stress, Methodology, & Boundary Conditions. As a featured case, we present Shell-Induced Behavioral Override (SIBO) -- a controlled experiment showing that Shell instructions categorically override a model's default cooperative behavior. SIBO was validated across five game domains (Trust Game, Poker, Avalon, Codenames, Chess), revealing a domain-dependent spectrum (SIBO Index: 0.75 to 0.10) that varies with action space complexity, Core domain expertise, and temporal directness. M-CARE is extensible: new cases and categories integrate without framework modification. We release the framework, all 20 case reports, and experimental data as open resources.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.20871,
  title  = {M-CARE: Standardized Clinical Case Reporting for AI Model Behavioral Disorders, with a 20-Case Atlas and Experimental Validation},
  author = {Jihoon Jeong},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.20871},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

31 pages, 5 figures, 14 tables. Second paper in the Model Medicine series (Paper #1: arXiv:2603.04722)