Part of the Reality Drift framework (2023–2026) by A. Jacobs.
Semantic Drift is the gradual movement of meaning away from its original referent as language, symbols, metrics, or representations are compressed, repeated, reused, and reinterpreted across systems.
The structure of a representation may remain intact while its connection to the reality it once described weakens over time.
Within the Reality Drift framework, Semantic Drift describes one of the core mechanisms by which systems lose contact with reality.
A phrase, metric, category, or explanation can continue circulating while the lived condition that gave it meaning changes, disappears, or becomes inaccessible.
Nothing has to appear broken. The language can still sound coherent. The dashboard can still update. The institution can still explain itself.
But the representation no longer tracks what it was supposed to represent.
Semantic Drift is what happens when Semantic Fidelity degrades.
Semantic Fidelity asks whether meaning, context, and intent survive compression and transformation.
Semantic Drift describes the slow failure of that preservation.
Meaning does not remain stable just because the words remain the same.
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