Definition
Plain language
When a search agent mostly answers from what it already knows and just uses search to confirm its guess.
As stated in the literature
IKD — a characterized failure mode where agents generate answer hypotheses from parametric memory and use retrieval as confirmation rather than discovery, causing collapse below baseline when supporting evidence is removed.
Also called: IKD
Why it matters: It means an agent's apparent search skill can collapse when the supporting evidence is removed, revealing it wasn't really discovering anything.
For example, a search agent already guesses the answer from memory and only runs a search to find something that backs up its hunch.
Heard on the show
“The authors name this whole pattern Intrinsic Knowledge Dependence.”Episode 092 — When Search Agents Don't Really Search: The Memory Shortcut Hiding in Browsing Benchmarks