Trust as reality maintenance: AI-mediated post-reality and second-order trust in complex systems

Purpose The study aims to develop a conceptual account of trust in AI-mediated complex systems by addressing a post-reality problem insufficiently captured by debates on trustworthy AI, misinformation and digital governance: social systems increasingly act on synthetic, predictive or institutionally mediated representations before their provenance, limits and contestability are established. Trust is reconstructed as a second-order cybernetic process of reality maintenance. Design/methodology/approach Theory is used as the method through an integrative conceptual synthesis of the sociological trust theory, social systems theory, cybernetics, philosophy of technology, AI trust research, organisational systems and education. Systems-theoretical distinctions, including observation, second-order observation, feedback, requisite variety, operational closure and autopoiesis, are used to redescribe trust under AI-mediated post-reality conditions. Findings Post-reality is not the disappearance of reality, but a condition in which AI-mediated observations become decision premises before they are adequately traced, interpreted, contested or corrected. Trust cannot be reduced to confidence in persons, institutions or technologies. It depends on recursive arrangements through which representations are generated, observed, challenged, repaired and learned from. A reality-maintenance model is developed around provenance, interpretability, participatory contestability, institutional accountability and observer formation. The model identifies post-reality drift as the recursive process through which AI-mediated representations become institutionally consequential, reshape the environments they describe and then reinforce subsequent observations. Originality/value Trust is reconstructed as a cybernetic achievement of observing systems rather than as a psychological attitude, an institutional property or a technology-adoption variable. The article distinguishes post-reality from post-truth, extends the trust theory to AI-mediated second-order observation and positions education as a formative subsystem for warranted trust and accountable distrust across complex institutional environments today.