Detection signals
- Past effort/investment is central justification.
- Future outlook is secondary to historical commitment.
- Escalation continues after contradictory evidence.
Sunk cost fallacy
Past investment is used to justify continuation despite weak future value.
The narrative treats already spent resources as a reason to persist, instead of re-evaluating expected future outcomes from current evidence.
Caution notes
- Long-term projects may need persistence for valid reasons.
- Detect only when past cost replaces forward-looking evaluation.
AI-generated domain examples
Generate illustrative examples for a selected domain/topic. Generated output is separated from canonical ontology content.