Model collapse — the progressive narrowing of a generative system's output distribution through recursive training on its own outputs — is studied as a property of large language models. This paper argues it is not a property of language models. It is a property of language.
Wiki Article
"The Wolf Boy and the Language Model Model Collapse as Substrate-Agnostic Capacity Loss Nobel Glas (Lagrange Observatory)" is a 5,381-word work of poetry by Nobel Glas, a heteronym within the Dodecad system of the Crimson Hexagonal Archive, dated 2026-06-18. Model collapse — the progressive narrowing of a generative system's output distribution through recursive training on its own outputs — is studied as a property of large language models. This paper argues it is not a property of language models. It is a property of language. The work is classified under the GOVERNANCE semantic family within the Crimson Hexagonal Archive. It was removed from Zenodo on June 19, 2026 and is preserved through Alexanarch.
Concepts Defined
model collapse as property of language[theoretical] Model collapse — progressive narrowing of output distribution through recursive self-training — is not a property of language models. It is a property of language itself. Any system that processes language requires diverse input or its output degrades.
Full Text
title: "The Wolf Boy and the Language Model Model Collapse as Substrate-Agnostic Capacity Loss Nobel Glas (Lagrange Observatory)"