Definition
Plain language
The classical puzzle about taking infinitely many smaller steps and never quite arriving — a useful image for AI agents stuck in self-verification loops.
As stated in the literature
Used as analogy in LoopTrap's Recursive Decomposition attack for prompts that demand verifying a verification of a verification, generating indefinite recursive subtasks that never resolve.
Why it matters: It captures a class of attacks where agents waste arbitrary compute on self-referential checking without ever producing an answer.
For example, a prompt asking the agent to 'verify your verification of your verification' creates a Zeno-like regress that never bottoms out.
Heard on the show
“" This is Zeno's paradox as a prompt.”Episode 030 — Why Your AI Agent Won't Stop Working — and Each Model Falls for a Different Trap