This paper argues that coherence is not truth. Coherence is a property of form: internal fit, narrative closure, stylistic smoothness, and the sense that an account hangs together. Truth, in the human epistemic domain, requires more. It requires contact with what a claim did not author and cannot fully control: contradiction, time, cost, evidence, witness, and repair. The paper argues that for a long time coherence carried weak evidential value because producing clear and persuasive language usually required labor, revision, and some exposure to consequence. Generative AI breaks that cultural shortcut by producing fluent, personalized coherence without lived stake or accountability. Drawing on research on processing fluency, narrative persuasion, hallucination, sycophancy, and overreliance, the paper argues that AI does not create the underlying weakness but industrializes it. Its central claim is that truth in human practice is better understood as reliability under contact than as coherence alone.
Vladisav Jovanovic (Wed,) studied this question.