Interpretive remanence
Interpretive remanence designates the persistence of an old interpretation in AI system outputs, even after the canon has been corrected, clarified, or updated. It is a form of “residual memory”: the old version continues to reappear, sometimes sporadically, sometimes stably.
Interpretive remanence is one of the most costly mechanisms to correct, because it gives the impression that the truth has been updated, while maintaining regular returns to the old state.
Definition
Interpretive remanence is the fact that an AI system:
- still produces a prior interpretation (or fragments of it);
- while a more recent canonical version exists;
- and this persistence is not explained solely by lack of access to the corrected page.
Remanence can stem from synthesis habits, durable secondary sources, dominant neighborhood, or selection mechanisms that continue activating the old framing.
