Interpretive drift occurs when execution continues after interpretation has expired.
The system keeps answering the same question.
Reality quietly changes the question.
Drift is calm.
Metrics stay green.
Processes remain compliant.
Nothing triggers alarms.
Trust erodes anyway.
Interpretations get locked into:
As context shifts, those interpretations stop matching lived reality.
Interpretive drift appears most clearly in:
But its origins are often upstream.
Drift is frequently treated as:
Training only scales drift faster.
Left unaddressed, drift compounds into trust decay and brand fragility.
Drift doesn’t break systems.
It hollowes them out.