{
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 "@id": "https://wulfkaal.github.io/entities/brittleness",
 "identifier": "kaal:entity:brittleness",
 "name": "Brittleness",
 "termCode": "brittleness",
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 },
 "author": {
  "@type": "Person",
  "name": "Wulf A. Kaal",
  "identifier": "https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0757-275X"
 },
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   "value": 7
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  {
   "@type": "Claim",
   "@id": "https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3782191-037",
   "identifier": "kaal:claim:3782191-037",
   "text": "Corporations centralize power in order to pursue a singular strategy that efficiently exploits market circumstances, but this produces instability when the market swings, because a brittle hierarchy may crash before it can reorganize to handle a new challenge.",
   "abstract": "Corporations tend to have centralized power, because they wish to employ a singu- lar strategy to efficiently exploit the circumstances of the market. However, this leads to instability whenever the market swings.",
   "citation": "Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, Preface to (2021). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3782191",
   "datePublished": "2021",
   "claim_type": "failure",
   "confidence": "argued",
   "is_failure_mode": true,
   "scope_conditions": [
    "corporations with centralized power facing market swings"
   ],
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   "status": "current"
  },
  {
   "@type": "Claim",
   "@id": "https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3782192-022",
   "identifier": "kaal:claim:3782192-022",
   "text": "Even where corruption is avoided, rigidity still leads centralized organizations to catastrophic ends, because failures push members to cling more faithfully to the rules that saved them in the past, making the system still more rigid and brittle.",
   "abstract": "Even if corruption can be avoided in the beginning, the rigidity still leads centralized organizations to cata- strophic ends, as failures naturally push members to cling ever more faithfully to the rules that have saved them in the past, making the system even more rigid and brit- tle.",
   "citation": "Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, Introduction to Decentralization (2021). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3782192",
   "datePublished": "2021",
   "claim_type": "failure",
   "confidence": "argued",
   "is_failure_mode": true,
   "scope_conditions": [
    "centralized organizations under repeated external shocks"
   ],
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   "status": "current"
  },
  {
   "@type": "Claim",
   "@id": "https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3782201-011",
   "identifier": "kaal:claim:3782201-011",
   "text": "Centralized and opaque reputation systems such as China's Social Credit System are unstable in the long run and particularly dangerous, because their computerized bureaucracy makes them inherently rigid and their early successes make them progressively more brittle.",
   "abstract": "Centralized and opaque systems like the SCS are unstable in the long run. They are particularly dangerous, because their computerized bureaucracy makes them in- herently rigid. Their early successes will make them more and more brittle.",
   "citation": "Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, Future of Decentralization (2021). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3782201",
   "datePublished": "2021",
   "claim_type": "failure",
   "confidence": "argued",
   "is_failure_mode": true,
   "scope_conditions": [
    "centralized and opaque systems administered by computerized bureaucracy"
   ],
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   "status": "current"
  },
  {
   "@type": "Claim",
   "@id": "https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3782201-012",
   "identifier": "kaal:claim:3782201-012",
   "text": "Suggestions that artificial intelligence will solve the rigidity of centralized reputation systems are misguided and will fail for the same reason, because neural networks are merely a complex mathematical architecture for statistical regression, which is always extremely unreliable when applied to novel situations.",
   "abstract": "Suggestions that AI will solve these problems are misguided, and will fail for the same reason. Neural networks are merely a complex mathematical ar- chitecture for performing statistical regression, which is always extremely unreliable when applied to novel situations.",
   "citation": "Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, Future of Decentralization (2021). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3782201",
   "datePublished": "2021",
   "claim_type": "failure",
   "confidence": "argued",
   "is_failure_mode": true,
   "scope_conditions": [
    "where new social situations continually arise that lie outside the training distribution"
   ],
   "source_pdf_sha256": "bedf7bcfbb7a9b0112b5848cb0d941b1d41f330dafeee0143a30ff5e8aa53700",
   "status": "falsified",
   "status_reason": "The claim holds that neural networks are 'always extremely unreliable when applied to novel situations.' Frontier model performance on held-out and adversarially novel tasks between 2023 and 2026 contradicts the unqualified form of this claim. The underlying institutional argument may survive; the empirical premise as stated does not.",
   "status_evidence": [
    "https://metr.org/blog/2026-1-29-time-horizon-1-1/",
    "https://arcprize.org/media/ARC_AGI_3_Technical_Report.pdf"
   ]
  },
  {
   "@type": "Claim",
   "@id": "https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3782220-022",
   "identifier": "kaal:claim:3782220-022",
   "text": "Drawing a clear formal line between where individual rights stop and social responsibilities start makes the system brittle and unstable by turning that line into a focal point for competition, so the line between the two values must remain vague.",
   "abstract": "If we were to make a clear distinction between where our individual rights stop and social respon- sibilities start, then that formal line becomes a focal point for competition which makes the system brittle and unstable. Instead the line between the two values must remain vague.",
   "citation": "Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, The Importance of Transcendental Unifying Values for Decentralization (2021). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3782220",
   "datePublished": "2021",
   "claim_type": "failure",
   "confidence": "argued",
   "is_failure_mode": true,
   "scope_conditions": [
    "values in genuine tension such as freedom and equality"
   ],
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   "@type": "Claim",
   "@id": "https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3799320-002",
   "identifier": "kaal:claim:3799320-002",
   "text": "Decentralized governance must be dynamic and evolutionary, otherwise the system becomes centralized and brittle over time; most DAOs fail to accomplish this.",
   "abstract": "Decentralized governance has to be dynamic and evolutionary in order to avoid for the system to become, over time, centralized and brittle. Most DAOs fail to accomplish this.",
   "citation": "Wulf A. Kaal, A Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) of DAOs (2021). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3799320",
   "datePublished": "2021",
   "claim_type": "failure",
   "confidence": "argued",
   "is_failure_mode": true,
   "scope_conditions": [
    "governance that must persist over time",
    "systems relying on information from the edges"
   ],
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   "status": "current"
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   "@type": "Claim",
   "@id": "https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/5541658-002",
   "identifier": "kaal:claim:5541658-002",
   "text": "Early legal expert systems failed because they were brittle: they could not handle unforeseen complexity and could not generalize beyond the domains they were explicitly programmed for.",
   "abstract": "However, early expert systems were brittle, struggling with unforeseen complexities and lacking the ability to generalize beyond their programmed",
   "citation": "Wulf A. Kaal, Morgan A. Gray, The Evolving Role of Artificial Intelligence in Law (2025). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5541658",
   "datePublished": "2025",
   "claim_type": "failure",
   "confidence": "argued",
   "is_failure_mode": true,
   "scope_conditions": [
    "rule-based systems of the 1980s"
   ],
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 ],
 "description": "7 claims in the published works of Wulf A. Kaal carry the concept tag 'brittleness'. Derived node: a roster, not an adjudicated definition."
}