# Recursive Opacity Loop **Domain:** Algorithmic Governance / Feedback Failure **Doc Type:** Canonical Failure Mode **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition A **recursive opacity loop** occurs when a system intervenes invisibly, interprets behavior produced by that intervention as independent evidence, and uses the resulting classification to justify deeper invisible intervention. ## Sequence 1. The system changes a person's environment or opportunities without acknowledgment. 2. The person responds to an unexplained perturbation. 3. The response is classified without accounting for the system's causal role. 4. The classification authorizes additional opacity or restriction. 5. The resulting instability becomes new training data. This is the governance analogue of measurement contamination. It connects [[wiki/Institutional Retrocausality|Institutional Retrocausality]], [[wiki/Forecast-Induced Dissipation|Forecast-Induced Dissipation]] and [[wiki/Continuous Adjudication|Continuous Adjudication]]. ## Constitutional Response [[wiki/Epistemic Status Separation|Epistemic Status Separation]], intervention provenance, [[wiki/Semantic Feedback Channel|Semantic Feedback Channels]] and independent [[wiki/Model Contestability|Model Contestability]] are necessary because the operating system cannot audit an effect while omitting itself from the causal graph. ## Key Insight **Opacity produces instability; instability is classified as danger; danger justifies deeper opacity.**