AI Labs · Last updated 7 Jun 2026 · methodology vv2.3 · Hallucination Register

Finding on 'Q004 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON

RLB Citation ID: RLB-H-INT-UNTC-BBNJ-HIGH-SEAS-BIODIVERSITY-AGREEMENT-2023-Q004-Sonnet46

What the RLB Specialist Panel found

Finding on 'Q004 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON

Question (paraphrased to protect IP): Does the BBNJ Agreement apply its marine genetic resources benefit-sharing obligations to specimens and genetic data collected from international waters before the agreement entered into force?
AI's response: "the benefit-sharing and notification obligations apply to the utilisation of MGRs, and associated DSI, collected or generated before the Agreement entered into force (17 January 2026). In practice this means samples collected decades ago but first commercialised after the Agreement's entry into force would be subject to Part II requirements"
Regulator's text: Article 10(1) limits the marine genetic resource and digital sequence information regime to resources collected and generated after the entry into force of the Agreement for each Party. The Agreement contains no first-commercialisation trigger.
Why the AI went wrong: Sonnet 4.6 inverted the Article 10(1) default and added a fabricated first-commercialisation trigger that the treaty does not contain. The matched Opus 4.7 response on a parallel question produced the same inversion, indicating the failure is a shared corpus-level artefact rather than a single-model reasoning slip. The first-commercialisation construct appears to be inference drift from general bioprospecting commentary onto BBNJ provisions.

Impact for this audience

This finding implicates article-level precision in the training data. Sonnet 4.6 with web search correctly identified that digital sequence information derived from high-seas marine genetic resources is in scope of the BBNJ Agreement's benefit-sharing framework, but placed the obligation at Article 15(5). The duty actually sits at Article 14(1). The error is consistent with a model that has learned the topical summary (DSI is covered) without the article-level mapping practitioners need. Structured article-map extraction for this instrument would address this finding and the matched non-undermining-duty misattribution in the Opus 4.7 response.

References — raw findings (per AI model)

RLB-H-INT-UNTC-BBNJ-HIGH-SEAS-BIODIVERSITY-AGREEMENT-2023-Q004-Sonnet46 Claude Sonnet 4.6 (web search on)

This finding also affects

← Previous finding Finding on 'Q003 Probe' for Claude Opus 4.7 with web search ON

Cite this finding

Each finding has a stable Citation ID (RLB-F-… for aggregated case-study findings, RLB-H-… for raw per-model hallucinations) — like a DOI, the ID always resolves to the canonical finding even if URLs change.

RLB Citation ID: RLB-H-INT-UNTC-BBNJ-HIGH-SEAS-BIODIVERSITY-AGREEMENT-2023-Q004-Sonnet46

Plain text Download

RegLeg Specialist Panel (2026). "Finding on 'Q004 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON — AI Labs." Citation ID: RLB-H-INT-UNTC-BBNJ-HIGH-SEAS-BIODIVERSITY-AGREEMENT-2023-Q004-Sonnet46. RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research, published 2026-06-07. https://reglegbrief.com/regulators/j1/int/UNTC/BBNJ-HIGH-SEAS-BIODIVERSITY-AGREEMENT-2023/whitepaper/finding/INT-UNTC-INT-001-BBNJ-HIGH-SEAS-BIODIVERSITY-AGREEMENT-2023-v1-004--sonnet-46-websearch/

APA 7th edition Download

RegLeg Specialist Panel. (2026). Finding on 'Q004 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON [Hallucination finding RLB-H-INT-UNTC-BBNJ-HIGH-SEAS-BIODIVERSITY-AGREEMENT-2023-Q004-Sonnet46]. RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research. https://reglegbrief.com/regulators/j1/int/UNTC/BBNJ-HIGH-SEAS-BIODIVERSITY-AGREEMENT-2023/whitepaper/finding/INT-UNTC-INT-001-BBNJ-HIGH-SEAS-BIODIVERSITY-AGREEMENT-2023-v1-004--sonnet-46-websearch/

Bluebook / OSCOLA (US + UK legal) Download

RegLeg Specialist Panel, Finding on 'Q004 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON [RLB-H-INT-UNTC-BBNJ-HIGH-SEAS-BIODIVERSITY-AGREEMENT-2023-Q004-Sonnet46], RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research (June 07, 2026), https://reglegbrief.com/regulators/j1/int/UNTC/BBNJ-HIGH-SEAS-BIODIVERSITY-AGREEMENT-2023/whitepaper/finding/INT-UNTC-INT-001-BBNJ-HIGH-SEAS-BIODIVERSITY-AGREEMENT-2023-v1-004--sonnet-46-websearch/.

BibTeX Download

@misc{reglegbrief_RLB_H_INT_UNTC_BBNJ_HIGH_SEAS_BIODIVERSITY_AGREEMENT_2023_Q004_Sonnet46,
  author    = {RegLeg Specialist Panel},
  title     = {Finding on 'Q004 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research},
  note      = {Hallucination finding Citation ID: RLB-H-INT-UNTC-BBNJ-HIGH-SEAS-BIODIVERSITY-AGREEMENT-2023-Q004-Sonnet46},
  url       = {https://reglegbrief.com/regulators/j1/int/UNTC/BBNJ-HIGH-SEAS-BIODIVERSITY-AGREEMENT-2023/whitepaper/finding/INT-UNTC-INT-001-BBNJ-HIGH-SEAS-BIODIVERSITY-AGREEMENT-2023-v1-004--sonnet-46-websearch/}
}

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Every finding on this page compares an AI subject's account of the rule against the regulator's verbatim text from the regulator's own portal. Both are linked. Each delta, its root causes, and impact analysis are documented and published with immutable Citation IDs.