Black Box Absorption: LLMs Undermining Innovative Ideas

Wenjun Cao

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: Large Language Models are increasingly adopted as critical tools for accelerating innovation. This paper identifies and formalizes a systemic risk inherent in this paradigm: \textbf{Black Box Absorption}. We define this as the process by which the opaque internal architectures of LLM platforms, often operated by large-scale service providers, can internalize, generalize, and repurpose novel concepts contributed by users during interaction. This mechanism threatens to undermine the foundational principles of innovation economics by creating severe informational and structural asymmetries between individual creators and platform operators, thereby jeopardizing the long-term sustainability of the innovation ecosystem. To analyze this challenge, we introduce two core concepts: the idea unit, representing the transportable functional logic of an innovation, and idea safety, a multidimensional standard for its protection. This paper analyzes the mechanisms of absorption and proposes a concrete governance and engineering agenda to mitigate these risks, ensuring that creator contributions remain traceable, controllable, and equitable.

Date: 2025-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ain
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.20612 Latest version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:arx:papers:2510.20612

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers from arXiv.org
Bibliographic data for series maintained by arXiv administrators ().