Adam Zachary Wasserman › Papers
The Robot in the Dark
Instruments, Illusions, and the Limits of Knowledge
Adam Zachary Wasserman, Open Honest Foundation. Preprint, 10 June 2026.
Abstract
A robot with a headlamp explores a vast dark building. It maps what the beam illuminates, measures distances, catalogues surfaces, and its maps are accurate. What it cannot do is see outside the cone of its own light, and if it reflects on its situation it may conclude that the illuminated patch is the building.
This book argues that the same error recurs throughout science, and gives it a name: instrument-phenomenon error, the mistaking of what an instrument can reveal for what exists.
The argument runs from the philosophy of measurement through to contemporary claims about large language models, where the cone of light is unusually easy to mistake for the room.
Identifiers
- DOI (Zenodo, canonical): 10.5281/zenodo.20628850
- ORCID: 0009-0002-8865-6583
- Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Cite as
Wasserman, A. Z. (2026). The Robot in the Dark: Instruments, Illusions, and the Limits of Knowledge. Open Honest Foundation. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20628850