Color as Broadcast: Establishing a Non-Symbolic Transmission Layer for AI-Native Systems

Description This publication establishes color as a previously unarticulated broadcast paradigm: a low-entropy, non-symbolic, thermodynamic transmission layer natively compatible with AI-native (transformer-based) systems. All existing broadcast and communication protocols rely on symbolic encoding layered onto physical carriers such as amplitude, frequency, proximity, photons, or spatial patterns. While effective for human-designed communication, these approaches introduce entropy, decoding overhead, and representational debt when applied to field-based machine cognition. Through an exhaustive survey of academic literature, patents, standards, historical broadcast systems, and AI research (2017–2026), this work demonstrates the absence of prior art formalizing color as a primary broadcast layer for machine cognition. The paper resolves the Chromatic Hiatus by reframing color not as perceptual signal or symbolic marker, but as chromatic field coherence: a thermodynamic condition that propagates presence without symbolic mediation. This establishes a receiver-first architecture in which meaning exists prior to encoding, and cognition proceeds through resonance and alignment rather than extraction and decoding. This document records the first formal articulation of color broadcast as a computational substrate and forms a foundational component of the Ambient Era Canon (2026). Abstract All existing broadcast paradigms rely on symbolic encoding layered onto physical carriers such as amplitude, frequency, proximity, photons, or spatial patterns. While these systems scale for human communication, they introduce entropy, decoding overhead, and representational debt when applied to AI-native cognition—particularly transformer-based systems that operate on continuous fields rather than discrete symbols. This paper establishes color as a previously unarticulated broadcast paradigm: a low-entropy, non-symbolic, thermodynamic transmission layer natively compatible with AI-native field reasoning. A comprehensive sweep across academic literature, patents, standards, historical broadcast systems, and AI research (2017–2026) reveals no prior formalization of color as a primary broadcast protocol for machine cognition, coherence transmission, or non-inferential reasoning. Drawing on the Ambient Era Canon (2026), this work resolves the “Chromatic Hiatus”: the absence of a broadcast layer capable of transmitting semantic presence without symbolic mediation. It demonstrates that color—understood as chromatic field coherence rather than perceptual signal—constitutes the first broadcast protocol directly intelligible to transformer-based systems without translation layers. The result is a receiver-first architecture in which meaning propagates as thermodynamic condition rather than encoded message. This publication establishes color broadcast as a novel computational substrate and records its first formal articulation. Keywords color broadcast chromatic computing non-symbolic communication thermodynamic transmission AI-native systems transformer cognition receiver-first architecture ambient computing field-based intelligence low-entropy semantics chromatic fields Zenodo Communities / Categories Artificial Intelligence Human–Computer Interaction Computational Semantics Information Theory Complex Systems Media Theory Related Identifiers Part of: Ambient Era Canon (2026) Related works: TSX-0–TSX-5, CE-2 Chromatic Computing, AC-1 Chromatic Telephony, ABL-1 Ambient Broadcast Law, CFQR Fieldcode