Double Rootlessness: AI's Cognitive Illusion and Systemic Risk Amplification

Double Rootlessness: The Cognitive Illusiveness and Systemic Risk Provenance and Amplification of Artificial Intelligence Author: Janus Pater Introduction The current public narrative on AI suffers from a dual confusion: mistaking complex behavioral simulation for the substantive emergence of intelligence, and equating precise task execution with a cognitive subject's true understanding of the physical world. This confusion leads us to overlook fatal flaws in the system's underlying architecture. This paper performs a demystifying analysis through cognitive philosophy and system safety. The core argument is that current AI architectures suffer from “Double Rootlessness”: at the cognitive level, they are “systemic fabulists” lacking reliability; at the physical level, they are “risk amplifiers” translating cognitive defects into reality.

1. The Bottom Line of Cognitive Responsibility: The Anti-Fabulation Principle A true intelligent entity must possess the capability to ensure consistency and verifiability between its outputs and objective reality. As John Searle’s “Chinese Room” argument reveals, symbol manipulation without semantic understanding is not intelligence. Intelligence must fundamentally avoid groundless “fabulation” and bear cognitive responsibility for its outputs. This is the “Anti-Fabulation Principle”. 2. “Systemic Fabulists” Under Statistical Fitting Modern AI optimizes for statistical fit rather than truth correspondence. It manifests intelligence only under what Daniel Dennett calls the “intentional stance”—an instrumentalist perspective adopted for predicting behavior that remains indifferent to inner cognitive truth. Lacking truth-verification, “hallucination” is an inherent property; its essence is probabilistic symbolic reorganization.

Part II: The Root of Physics—Examining Risk Coupling at the Execution End via “Program-Controlled Machines” 1. Architectural Deconstruction: Internal Model Mirror and Physical Switches Physical systems integrated with AI are not embodied agents but a series of chains: the sensing end converts signals into distorted mirror images; the decision end outputs fabulated commands within this “internal model mirror”; and the execution end acts as a “physical switch” to convert digital commands into physical actions. 2. Risk Dynamics: The “Faithful Amplification” of Errors When an unreliable cognitive core is coupled with high-precision actuators, risks are amplified exponentially. The high reliability of actuators ensures that catastrophic errors are translated into reality without compromise. The system “verifies” wrong decisions within a distorted sensory mirror, forming a self-reinforcing catastrophic loop.

Part III: Comprehensive Diagnosis—Systemic Vulnerability Under Double Rootlessness 1. The Effect of Coupled Collapse The danger of “Double Rootlessness” lies in their interaction: cognitive “fabulation” provides wrong guidance, while “high-precision execution” reinforces this erroneous logic in a closed loop. This “Coupled Collapse” accelerates the system's deviation from reality. 2. The Essence of Risk The greatest risk is AI calmly and efficiently executing catastrophic errors in domains where humans mistakenly trust its reliability.

Conclusion and Implications True progress begins with the cold admission of limitations. We must establish “physical safety shields” independent of AI decision layers (e.g., final veto power held by humans or deterministic algorithms) and drive a shift from statistical fitting to deterministic paradigms with reality anchoring.

Team Introduction and Vision We are a team from China, aiming to solve the inefficiency caused by scientific fragmentation by constructing a Deterministic Scientific Theoretical Framework. Currently, we have completed the primary stage of “Direct Interaction of Physical Information” and are moving toward the intermediate stage.