The Decision No One Authored: The Answerability Gap in Generative AI
A person can retain full control of an AI-shaped decision and still fail to author it. The answerability gap is a missing act of judgment over the evaluative frame.
Research
Answerability and Authored AI Systems
These papers ask who answers for a decision an AI shaped, and whether an answer engine's verdict has an owner. The Decision No One Authored , The Captured Oracle , and Pay Me What You Owe Me are preprints so far, not yet journal publications, with more under review. The CV keeps the full record.
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The papers
Each paper has a site page; DOI records are linked where they exist. The full list, including manuscripts at journals, is on the CV.
The Captured Oracle: Authorship and Agency in the Ethics of Answer-Engine Optimization
When an answer engine voices a verdict with no visible author, covert optimization authors the frame, and no one answers for the public that acts on it.
Pay Me What You Owe Me: On the Indefeasibility of the Demand for an Account
When an action reaches someone, an account is owed. Routing it through a machine can hide or remove a respondent; it cannot end the owing.
Answer Engine is a small, open reference implementation of citation-grounded AI answers, built for engineers who want the design contract running in code.
Reading order
Lexicon
Defined terms live in the paper pages. The Decision No One Authored · The Captured Oracle · Pay Me What You Owe Me
Citations
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Walton, L. F. (2026). The Captured Oracle: Authorship and Agency in the Ethics of Answer-Engine Optimization [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20676327
Walton, Luke F. 2026. “The Captured Oracle: Authorship and Agency in the Ethics of Answer-Engine Optimization.” Preprint. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20676327.
@misc{walton2026captured,
author = {Walton, Luke F.},
title = {{The Captured Oracle: Authorship and Agency in the Ethics of Answer-Engine Optimization}},
year = {2026},
month = jul,
note = {Preprint},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.20676327},
url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20676327}
}TY - GEN
AU - Walton, Luke F.
TI - The Captured Oracle: Authorship and Agency in the Ethics of Answer-Engine Optimization
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/07//
PB - Zenodo
N1 - Preprint
DO - 10.5281/zenodo.20676327
UR - https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20676327
ER - Luke F. Walton, “The Captured Oracle: Authorship and Agency in the Ethics of Answer-Engine Optimization,” preprint, July 2026. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20676327.
Walton, L. F. (2026). Pay Me What You Owe Me: On the Indefeasibility of the Demand for an Account (Version 1.0) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23112498
Walton, Luke F. 2026. “Pay Me What You Owe Me: On the Indefeasibility of the Demand for an Account.” Preprint, version 1.0. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23112498.
@misc{walton2026pay,
author = {Walton, Luke F.},
title = {{Pay Me What You Owe Me: On the Indefeasibility of the Demand for an Account}},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
note = {Preprint, version 1.0},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.23112498},
url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23112498}
}TY - GEN
AU - Walton, Luke F.
TI - Pay Me What You Owe Me: On the Indefeasibility of the Demand for an Account
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10//
PB - Zenodo
N1 - Preprint, version 1.0
DO - 10.5281/zenodo.23112498
UR - https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23112498
ER - Luke F. Walton, “Pay Me What You Owe Me: On the Indefeasibility of the Demand for an Account,” preprint, v1.0, October 2026. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23112498.