Epistemic Trade-Off: An Analysis of the Operational Breakdown and Ontological Limits of "Certainty-Scope" in AI
- URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2508.19304v2
- Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2025 11:42:08 GMT
- Title: Epistemic Trade-Off: An Analysis of the Operational Breakdown and Ontological Limits of "Certainty-Scope" in AI
- Authors: Generoso Immediato,
- Abstract summary: Recently published "certainty-scope" conjecture offers a compelling insight into the inherent trade-off present within artificial intelligence (AI) systems.<n>This paper argues that the conjecture's objective to furnish insights for engineering design and regulatory decision-making is limited by two fundamental factors.
- Score: 0.0
- License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
- Abstract: The recently published "certainty-scope" conjecture offers a compelling insight into the inherent trade-off present within artificial intelligence (AI) systems. As general research, this investigation remains vital as a philosophical undertaking and a potential guide for directing AI investments, design, and deployment, especially in safety-critical and mission-critical domains where risk levels are substantially elevated. While maintaining intellectual coherence, its formalization ultimately consolidates this insight into a suspended epistemic truth, which resists operational implementation within practical systems. This paper argues that the conjecture's objective to furnish insights for engineering design and regulatory decision-making is limited by two fundamental factors: first, its dependence on incomputable constructs and its failure to capture the generality factors of AI, rendering it practically unimplementable and unverifiable; second, its foundational ontological assumption of AI systems as self-contained epistemic entities, distancing it from the complex and dynamic socio-technical environments where knowledge is co-constructed. We conclude that this dual breakdown - an epistemic closure deficit and an embeddedness bypass - hinders the conjecture's transition to a practical and actionable framework suitable for informing and guiding AI deployments. In response, we point towards a possible framing of the epistemic challenge, emphasizing the inherent epistemic burdens of AI within complex human-centric domains.
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