CONCEPT
Purpose Criterion
The fourth evaluative standard—what does this output
serve, whom does it serve, does it serve them well—connecting formal analysis to ethical judgment and social consequence beyond
Krauss's purely structural method.
Purpose is the criterion that extends Krauss's formal analysis into the domain of ethics and social consequence. Krauss's method is, by design, formal rather than ethical—she analyzes structural positions and conditions of production, not moral implications of what is produced. But AI output has consequences that formal analysis can identify but cannot, by itself, evaluate. Generated text circulating as journalism, generated images functioning as evidence, generated code operating critical infrastructure—these outputs affect people, communities, and institutions, and the adequacy of the output to its purpose cannot be assessed through formal properties alone. The purpose criterion asks: What does this output serve? Whom does it serve? Does it serve them
well—not merely efficiently (the
performativity criterion Lyotard identified as the postmodern default) but adequately, in a sense that includes care for affected populations that performativity cannot capture? Segal's question "
Are you worth amplifying?" is a
purpose question. It asks not whether amplification is possible but whether what is being amplified deserves the