Routine output may look the same while rationale, provenance and recovery capability have meanwhile been replaced piece by piece.
The Ship of Theseus asks when something remains ‘the same’ after its parts have gradually been replaced. For organisations, this becomes a practical question when AI takes over tasks, people who hold knowledge and decision steps while KPIs appear stable.
Routine output may look the same while rationale, provenance and recovery capability have meanwhile been replaced piece by piece.
Plutarch described Theseus’s ship, whose rotten planks were replaced one by one. Later versions, including Hobbes’s, added the question of what happens if the old planks are reassembled into a ship elsewhere.
The metaphysical question of identity is canonical but unresolved. Organisational continuity and change are mature research fields; the specific transfer to AI is a testable hypothesis, not a solved identity problem.
Gradual substitution can separate criteria that usually move together: material, functional, causal, provenance and capability continuity need not follow the same trajectory.
AI transfer to investigate: AI makes incremental substitution inexpensive and hard to notice. Output continuity may therefore be maintained while the ability to sustain the rationale or recover declines.
Proposed test, not yet conducted: Gradually increase AI substitution in processes while routine KPIs remain constant. Independently measure rationale reconstruction and unaided recovery; compare KPI-only assessors with assessors who see multidimensional evidence of continuity.
‘The process still works’ is too vague. Specify which continuity target matters for the consequence you are trying to manage.
Specify which continuity matters: output, people who hold knowledge, the ability to trace decisions, or recovery without assistance. The test does not measure metaphysical identity.
Hobbes, De Corpore (1655), part2 chapter11 — University-hosted excerpt
Plutarch (23.1) describes the ship; Hobbes adds the possibility of rebuilding it from the replaced parts. Organisational continuity dimensions and AI substitution are proposed applications. The sources do not measure organisational loss or settle the identity question.
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