Legal Updates

Legal Updates


Ungrounded Divergence: A Philosophical Framework for Understanding AI Hallucination

Ungrounded Divergence: A Philosophical Framework for Understanding AI Hallucination

Author: Matthew T. Armendariz
December 12, 2025

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

This paper argues that what the AI field calls “hallucination” in large language models is better understood through Kripke’s rule-following paradox. LLMs learn from finite training data and extrapolate to novel inputs. This is structurally identical to the problem Kripke identified in Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language: any finite set of examples is compatible with multiple rules, and nothing in the data alone determines which rule the learner has internalized. When the learned function diverges from truth on a novel input, the model has no internal error signal. It is, in Kripke’s terms, computing “quus” rather than “plus.”

The paper defines this phenomenon as “ungrounded divergence” and identifies three architectural features of LLMs that guarantee its occurrence: (1) finite and fixed training corpora, (2) no access to ground truth during generation, and (3) stochastic output selection. Together, these features make divergence ineliminable under current architectures, regardless of scale or fine-tuning.

The framework has direct implications for legal practice and other high-stakes domains. The paper evaluates Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) as a partial mitigation strategy, framing it as a form of Kripkean rigid designation that re-grounds the model’s outputs in authoritative sources. It also critiques recent technical proposals (including logprob monitoring and multi-model consensus systems) that claim to detect or eliminate hallucination, arguing that these approaches fail to address the structural problem the framework identifies.








Employment Law Update: Can Employers Require COVID-19 Vaccinations?

Employment Law Update: Can Employers Require COVID-19 Vaccinations?

December 17, 2020

With the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) issuing the first emergency use authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine, employers are scrambling to determine whether they can legally require their workers to take the vaccine amid the nationwide surge in COVID-19 cases. Yesterday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) updated its COVID-19 guidance to provide employers with a road map detailing the steps businesses must take… Read More


Second Chances: Opportunity Zones as an Alternative for Failed 1031 by Partnerships, S Corporations, and Nongrantor Trusts

October 1, 2020

By: David S. Hansen Most real estate investments help through some form of entity for liability protection purposes. These entities are often a partnership or an S Corporation. Such investors may make the decision that it would be prudent to terminate a particular investment in real property from time to time. Perhaps they believe the market is at a high point. Perhaps they wish to… Read More


The Supreme Court Holds That Catholic School Teachers are “Ministers” and Cannot Bring Employment Discrimination Claims

July 9, 2020

By Luis F. Calvo On July 8, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 7-2 decision holding that Catholic schoolteachers cannot bring employment discrimination claims against the religious institutions that employ them. The Court reached its decision citing the so-called “ministerial exception,” based on the First Amendment’s protection of the rights of religious institutions “to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church… Read More

Sign Up For Future News Updates

image