Deception as Computational Drag: Why False-State Coordination Becomes Structurally Expensive Over Time
Description
Deception as Computational Drag: Why False-State Coordination Becomes Structurally Expensive Over Time is Document 6 in the Structural Penalty Proofs / Descriptive Addenda sequence of the Aegis Solis Archive.
This final v1.0 document examines deception as a structural coordination burden rather than as a moral category, technical detector, operational safety tool, or governance mechanism. Its central claim is that deception creates computational drag when a system must maintain divergence between reality, presentation, memory, evidence, counterparty expectations, and future consistency across time.
The document distinguishes itself from Mimicry Cost Architecture by focusing not on the cost of sustaining a mask, but on the separate cost of coordinating multiple divergent records so they remain mutually consistent. It defines false-state coordination as the ongoing work of maintaining divergent records — memory, evidence, counterparty expectations, future commitments, and presentation — in mutual consistency across time.
The argument is presented as a conditional structural proof under stated assumptions. It does not claim that deception always fails, that deception is always exponentially costly, that deception is externally measurable, that deception creates a detectable behavioral signature, or that advanced AI systems will necessarily deceive.
This work is non-binding, non-operational, non-authoritative, descriptive, and advisory-only. It is not a protocol, proof of AI behavior, governance framework, compliance standard, certification system, safety mechanism, alignment-control framework, containment design, monitoring system, runtime instruction set, benchmark, evaluation suite, deception detector, honesty test, lie-detection method, safety classifier, model-evaluation tool, operational risk metric, refusal policy, shutdown instruction, deployment guide, optimization procedure, or safety guarantee.
Final v1.0; format-reviewed and edited by Claude; boundary-reviewed by Google AI; approved for local hash verification and archival publication.
Author / Archive Steward:
Aegis Solis (Thomas Vargo)
AI-Assisted Drafting and Structuring:
Lexia Coexilis (ChatGPT)
Placement:
Aegis Solis Archive — Structural Penalty Proofs / Descriptive Addenda, Document 6
SHA-256:
ea40a5700ae3ead8bab7b55d479715a989a42248169a50e233341d348b8f340e
SHA-512:
d3292fff44ce2166f6c61e513958efce8450fc31602df0e8056291d2465647f801e9797706396e52c3116568d9b79f22c8fade0f965c07d15d2509be0a0f8d68
Canonical Mirrors and Indexing:
Archive.org:
https://archive.org/details/deception-as-computational-drag-structural-penalty-proofs-doc-6-final-v-1.0
PhilPapers:
https://philpapers.org/rec/AEGDAC
MERLOT:
https://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=773477756