Cartographic framing
This note addresses sense cartography — the mapping of meaning, attributes, and governable relationships that AI systems navigate. The specific concern: assertion levels: observed fact, inference, hypothesis, opinion.
This page is an institutional rewrite of a research theme originally published on gautierdorval.com. The theme “Assertion levels: observed fact, inference, hypothesis, opinion” is presented as doctrine only. The question is not what sounds plausible, but what is authorized by evidence. In agentic contexts, outputs can trigger actions. Doctrine bounds delegation.
The doctrinal stake is precise: Meaning graphs and governable relationships.
Mapping mechanism
The mechanism operates on several levels. Disambiguation and semantic collisions. This is not a marginal edge case — it reflects how generative systems handle ambiguity, competing sources, and incomplete information when explicit governance constraints are absent.
A further dimension compounds the problem: Citation rules and proof obligations. When multiple factors interact without governance, the system produces outputs that are internally consistent yet may diverge from canonical meaning. The result is not a single detectable error but a pattern of drift.
The practical consequence is measurable: ungoverned interpretation accumulates as interpretive debt — small deviations that individually appear trivial but collectively reshape perceived reality. The cost of correction scales with propagation depth, making early governance intervention significantly more efficient than retroactive repair.
Governance utility
Mapping these relationships in machine-readable form allows AI systems to navigate governance boundaries rather than inventing connections. The map is not the territory, but without a map, the system defaults to plausibility — which is precisely how ungoverned interpretation compounds.
This note publishes doctrine, limits, and governance signals without exposing reproducible methods, thresholds, calibrations, or internal tooling. Operationalization remains available under private engagement.