CONCEPT
Informational Opportunism
Strategic exploitation of the gap between AI output's smooth surface and actual quality—a governance hazard unique to technologies producing uniformly polished results.
Informational opportunism is the exploitation of the asymmetry between how AI output appears (syntactically correct, well-formatted, confidently presented) and what it actually is (potentially flawed in logic, analysis, or factual grounding). Unlike traditional informational asymmetry where one party knows more than the other, AI creates a novel structure: neither party may fully understand the output's quality. The developer accepting Claude-generated code may lack the expertise to evaluate it deeply. The manager reviewing AI-assisted analysis may not know which claims to verify. The smooth surface—consistent formatting, professional tone, absence of obvious errors—functions as a false quality signal, and accepting output based on surface characteristics is a form of opportunistic behavior: taking the productivity gain while externalizing verification costs to an undefined future when failures manifest. Governance requires depth evaluation mechanisms catching errors smooth surfaces conceal.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The concept synthesizes Williamson's opportunism framework with Han's aesthetics of the smooth and information economics' work on asymmetric information (Akerlof's lemons, Spence's signaling). Traditional opportunism involves one party exploiting