aiqbench analysis
This paper proposes a formal design constraint for creating neutral substrates in shared accountability records, ensuring that contested causal or normative claims are preserved as attributed assertions rather than foundational commitments. By restricting the foundational layer to fixed referential commitments and provenance, the framework allows parties with divergent interpretations to maintain a stable common ground without imposing a single worldview. This approach is relevant for AI systems managing multi-agent collaboration or legal records where interpretive disagreement is inherent but accountability must be preserved.
Neutral Substrates: A Design Constraint for Shared Records Under Persistent Interpretive Disagreement
arXiv:2601.14271v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Shared accountability records are often used by parties who may never agree about causation, responsibility, or normative interpretation. For such records, neutrality cannot be achieved by omitting contested information, because accountability requires preserving the claims parties made, with their sources and provenance. Nor can neutrality be achieved by asserting one contested interpretation as the shared base. This paper defines a neutral substrate as a shared representational layer that provides stable reference while making no object-level substrate-layer commitments to causal or normative propositions. The central design constraint is that, when causal and normative propositions are contestable across admissible frameworks and the substrate's referential commitments are common ground, the substrate's neutrality is guaranteed at design time if and only if its foundational layer is restricted to those referential commitments and attribution propositions whose attributional basis is fixed by them. Causal and normative content may still be represented, but not as object-level foundational-layer commitments: it may appear there only as the content of attributed assertions with provenance, made by some identified framework, source, agent, institution, record, or document. The representational machinery used here is standard: reification, attribution, and provenance. The contribution is the constraint: a checkable condition on the foundational layer of a shared record, stated together with the assumptions it depends on and the boundary condition under which the constraint does not apply. A neutral substrate says enough to preserve accountability, but it does not turn one party's interpretation into an object-level substrate-layer commitment. The constraint does not apply at that layer when the referential regime or attributional basis is contested among the frameworks in play.
Abstract:Shared accountability records are often used by parties who may never agree about causation, responsibility, or normative interpretation. For such records, neutrality cannot be achieved by omitting contested information, because accountability requires preserving the claims parties made, with their sources and provenance. Nor can neutrality be achieved by asserting one contested interpretation as the shared base. This paper defines a neutral substrate as a shared representational layer that provides stable reference while making no object-level substrate-layer commitments to causal or normative propositions. The central design constraint is that, when causal and normative propositions are contestable across admissible frameworks and the substrate's referential commitments are common ground, the substrate's neutrality is guaranteed at design time if and only if its foundational layer is restricted to those referential commitments and attribution propositions whose attributional basis is fixed by them. Causal and normative content may still be represented, but not as object-level foundational-layer commitments: it may appear there only as the content of attributed assertions with provenance, made by some identified framework, source, agent, institution, record, or document. The representational machinery used here is standard: reification, attribution, and provenance. The contribution is the constraint: a checkable condition on the foundational layer of a shared record, stated together with the assumptions it depends on and the boundary condition under which the constraint does not apply. A neutral substrate says enough to preserve accountability, but it does not turn one party's interpretation into an object-level substrate-layer commitment. The constraint does not apply at that layer when the referential regime or attributional basis is contested among the frameworks in play.
Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI)
arXiv:2601.14271 [cs.AI]
(or arXiv:2601.14271v3 [cs.AI] for this version)
From: Denise M. Case [view email] [v1] Thu, 8 Jan 2026 02:36:13 UTC (35 KB) [v2] Wed, 8 Jul 2026 02:17:10 UTC (17 KB) [v3] Fri, 2 Oct 2026 18:55:10 UTC (17 KB)
Full text under the publisher's open licence · 308 words
Related coverage
Problems of Proliferation
LessWrong · Sep 29, 2026
Stock Market Today Highlights, Sept 2: Sensex ends 373 pts lower at 76, 570, Nifty below 24, 000; Asian Paints, HDFC Bank fall most
thehindubusinessline.com · Sep 2, 2026
A Red Line and Oversight Framework for Government AI Contracts
AI Alignment Forum · Jul 18, 2026
News
Quantum Computing Report · Jun 7, 2026