Innerere

Innerere is a term used in speculative philosophy and some AI alignment discussions to describe the internal ecosystem of an agent—the network of beliefs, goals, memories, and affect that guide its behavior—distinct from the outward actions it performs. It is not part of a formal, widely adopted theory, and it does not appear in standard cognitive science textbooks; rather, it appears in essays and thought experiments that probe how internal states relate to external behavior.

The coinage appears to fuse the word inner with a Latinate -ere suffix common in theoretical terminology, and there is no authoritative etymology or definition accepted across disciplines.

In typical use, innerere is modeled as an internal state map or vector that is updated through experience and introspection and that feeds decision-making processes. The approach emphasizes a potential gap between what an agent reports about its aims and what actually motivates its actions, a concern central to discussions of alignment and autonomy.

Applications and debates surrounding innerere include philosophical questions about free will, mental causation, and the nature of agency, as well as practical AI discussions about inner versus outer alignment. Proponents see it as a useful heuristic for analyzing how internal goals might diverge from externally observable behavior; critics warn that the term can be too vague for rigorous theorizing without a clear formal framework.

Although not a standard term, innerere appears in a small but recurring thread of literature and commentary on the architecture of motivation, cognition, and control in both biological and artificial systems.