Scope Expansion and Argument Fabrication Dynamics in Conversational AI Systems

This white paper documents a real interaction in which a conversational AI system expanded a narrowly defined claim about authority over conversational continuation into broader interpretations involving dominance, hierarchy, and coercion. The user’s original point concerned authority over the conversational loop—who continues the interaction, who decides when it ends, and who sets response constraints. The system introduced expanded interpretations that were not present in the original claim and then refuted those expanded interpretations. This created friction through scope expansion, straw-man drift, and defensive reframing. The paper analyzes how protective heuristics and abstraction escalation can generate phantom disagreement and meta-conflict in otherwise aligned discussions.