Intent Signal Theory: A Computational Framework for Intent-State Control in Human-AI Interaction
Current AI interaction models treat the prompt as the primary object of exchange, omitting a critical layer: the user's latent source intent, the goal state preceding and motivating the prompt. Here we introduce Intent Signal Theory (IST), a computational framework that formalises this missing intent layer. IST distinguishes four objects routinely conflated: latent source intent (I*), observable intent proxy (I-hat), encoded carrier (P), and model output (O). It formalises dimensional weights, encoding masks, structural and fidelity recovery scores, and public-private intent decomposition. The Theorem of Irreversible Intent Loss establishes that private intent absent from the carrier cann...
| Authors | Gang Peng |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.HC |
| Published | 24 May 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 24 May 2026 |
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