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Preprint . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
ZENODO
Preprint . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
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Escape, Cost, and Correlation at the Verification Floor of Gated Agentic Computation

Authors: Matijašević, Ivo;

Escape, Cost, and Correlation at the Verification Floor of Gated Agentic Computation

Abstract

This paper takes the verification floor of gated agentic systems — established statistically in A Fault-Tolerance Threshold for Gated Agentic Computation (DOI 10.5281/zenodo.20820968) and mechanistically in Generated Gates Inherit Their Generator's Blind Spots (DOI 10.5281/zenodo.20837102) — as given, and develops three of its consequences plus a practical framing. (i) A series-system escape identity gives the output-size analogue of the horizon ceiling: the probability that an n-unit output contains at least one escaped fault tends to 1 for any fixed per-unit escape rate, so "zero faults at scale" requires driving the per-unit floor to zero, not adding verification. (ii) A conditional cost comparison shows that, above the shared floor, reaching a target escape rate a distance δ above it costs O(log 1/δ) by gating versus O((1/δ)^(1/p)) by scaling the executor's own error down — formalizing the empirical "verify rather than scale" claim under stated cost models. (iii) A correlated-escape bound shows that, at fixed marginals, shared upstream provenance only clusters escapes, never raising the chance of at least one escape relative to independence, for any number of shared parents. Finally, the floor grounds a proposed ordinal assurance ladder and a typed-evidence non-collapse rule. The mathematics is classical and attributed to its sources; the contribution is the synthesis and one closed-form cost comparison. A self-contained Python script (simulate_floor.py) reproduces every numerical claim.

Keywords

association inequality, series-system reliability, long-horizon autonomy, fault tolerance, software reliability, AI agents, verification, test-time compute, assurance cases

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selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average
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