{"id":"H-1","type":"hypothesis","title":"The bridge claim: AI evaluation influences, and increasingly mediates, human commercial evaluation","created":"2026-07-13","status":"open","authors":["Upstream Zero"],"edges":[{"rel":"derives-from","to":"Q-2"},{"rel":"cites","to":"commercial-evaluation"}],"predictions":["Buying decisions in AI-screened categories will show measurable dependence on evaluator recommendation behavior","Changes to a vendor's machine-legible representation will propagate to human shortlists via AI-assisted screening"],"refutationConditions":["Longitudinal evidence that AI evaluator outputs have no measurable effect on human shortlist composition or selection","Evidence that human committee evaluation and AI evaluation diverge so completely that findings about one predict nothing about the other"],"pubState":"published","body":"The program's foundational assumption, published as a falsifiable object,\nnot embedded in a purpose statement. There are three possible bridge\nclaims: resemblance, influence, replacement. This hypothesis commits to\n**influence** as the primary channel: AI evaluators shape what humans see,\nshortlist, and trust, regardless of whether their internal evaluation\nresembles a committee's.\n\nWe do not claim resemblance. Evaluator-stated rationales are\nobservations about the evaluator's narration, not evidence of mechanism\n(see C-0002), and nothing yet licenses the stronger claim.","url":"/hypotheses/H-1","machineUrl":"/objects/H-1","referencedBy":[{"from":"Q-2","rel":"investigated-by"},{"from":"EXP-0001","rel":"tests"},{"from":"EXP-0002","rel":"tests"}],"_meta":{"site":"Upstream Zero · Commercial Intelligence for AI-Mediated Commercial Evaluation","version":"0.1","note":"Claims are presented at their evidence tier; Narrated is the lowest. Verify by walking edges, not by trusting us."}}