AI Space Physics: Constitutive boundary semantics for open AI institutions

TL;DR

This paper introduces AI Space Physics, a formal semantics framework for understanding how open AI institutions expand their authority and state over time through boundary crossing events, emphasizing governance implications.

Contribution

It defines a minimal state model with boundary channels and introduces a novel semantics that classifies authority expansion as a first-class boundary event.

Findings

Defines a minimal state model with boundary channels

Introduces a semantics for boundary crossing events in AI institutions

Reclassifies authority expansion as a governance-relevant boundary event

Abstract

Agentic AI deployments increasingly behave as persistent institutions rather than one-shot inference endpoints: they accumulate state, invoke external tools, coordinate multiple runtimes, and modify their future authority surface over time. Existing governance language typically specifies decision-layer constraints but leaves the causal mechanics of boundary crossing underdefined, particularly for transitions that do not immediately change the external world yet expand what the institution can later do. This paper introduces AI Space Physics as a constitutive semantics for open, self-expanding AI institutions. We define a minimal state model with typed boundary channels, horizon-limited reach semantics, and a membrane-witness discipline. The core law family (P-1, P-1a, P-1b, P-1c) requires witness completeness, non-bypass mediation, atomic adjudication-to-effect transitions, and replayable reconstruction of adjudication class. We explicitly separate second-order effects into structural expansion and policy broadening, and treat expansion transitions as governance-relevant even when immediate external deltas are zero. The novelty claim is precise rather than expansive: this work does not introduce mediation as a concept; it reclassifies authority-surface expansion as a first-class boundary event with constitutive witness obligations. In this semantics, expansion without immediate commit remains adjudication-relevant.