Valeriano Grasso

Extended abstract, accepted at MBR026, Rome, June 2026, forthcoming in Springer SAPERE series Recent epistemological work on large language models has focused on questions of knowledge, reasoning, and normative competence, typically evaluating model outputs in terms of reliability, bias, or misuse. While these analyses have clarified important aspects of how LLMs perform epistemic tasks, I argue that they leave underexamined a distinct problem that emerges when language models are treated as models within institutional reasoning practices, rather than merely as tools. The central claim is that the primary epistemic risk associated with the institutionalization of LLMs is not misuse, but a phenomenon I call context drift.