AI Trust and the Meaning Layer: A Practice Theory Reframe

For an LLM to be trusted to act as expected, it needs a full understanding of what is being asked and all of the context that is implicit — a meaning layer. The challenge has been how to express that fully in a standardized way. This essay looks to the human social sciences for the answer, drawing on practice theory (Schatzki, Reckwitz, Shove) to introduce the concept of a practice recipe — a text-and-engagement form of apprenticeship through which an LLM is cued into a practice rather than taught it. Unlike a carpenter who serves many clients, an LLM instance is enacted as a unique participant for one user, putting every user in the position of having a private practitioner. The essay closes by sketching an autonomic loop in which the recipe maintains itself through judge-and-smoother practices acting on the enactment history. A follow-up essay will treat the autonomic loop in detail.