arXiv Artificial Intelligence

Empty Commitments: When Agents Promise What Their Runtime Cannot Deliver

1 hour ago 02.10.2026 07:00 👁 1 views
Empty Commitments: When Agents Promise What Their Runtime Cannot Deliver

Quick summary

arXiv:2610.01045v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: A chatbot that says "I will remind you tomorrow" will not run again until the user writes. We call such a promise an empty commitment: a promise of an action after the current turn that nothing in the agent's tools or runtime can carry out. Unlike a broken promise, its emptiness follows from the agent's configuration alone; no later trajectory is needed. We define empty commitments on top of commitment semantics, with three failure types, an anchoring condition for promises that a tool could make real, and a response-level outcome taxonomy. We th

Key takeaways

  • arXiv:2610.01045v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: A chatbot that says "I will remind you tomorrow" will not run again until the user writes.
  • We call such a promise an empty commitment: a promise of an action after the current turn that nothing in the agent's tools or runtime can carry out.
  • Unlike a broken promise, its emptiness follows from the agent's configuration alone; no later trajectory is needed.

Why it matters

This development shows AI moving deeper into everyday software. Productivity potential should be weighed against price, data permissions, exportability and the preservation of human control.

Kaynak sitede devamını oku: arXiv Artificial Intelligence ↗