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 and The Captured Oracle 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.
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 two paper pages. The Decision No One Authored · The Captured Oracle
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.