Can an AI Agent Be Epistemically Akratic? Higher-Order Evidence & the Limits of Self-Correction

arXiv:2611.14889v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: When we judge that our reasoning was defective, it seems plausible that we should abandon the conclusion it produced. This thought has special force for AI agents built to assess and correct their own work. Yet obeying such judgments can make an agent worse at distinguishing sound reasoning from defective reasoning. An AI agent may rely on information about its reasoning when deciding which conclusions to keep, while the part that judges whether those conclusions are justified cannot use that information. The agent can then exercise an epistemic competence by retaining conclusions it judges unjustified, even when its self-assessments are generally reliable.