Artificial Intelligence
The Great Illusion of AI Provenance
Every major AI company points to provenance as a saving grace. We track our data. We log our training. We can show you the chain of custody. It sounds reassuring. It sounds like science. In its current form, it is an illusion. The technical layer is broken. The business layer is opaque by design. The jurisdictional layer has no single answer. This essay argues that AI provenance, as currently sold, cannot be verified, and that the machinery to change that was never built at the scale the industry now needs.
Jul 2026 · 13 min read