The autonomy dial.

As soon as an AI can act in your software, a question arises: at what point does it stop helping an employee and start acting on the company’s behalf, and who decides where that line lies? This white paper is for chief executives and leadership teams. It follows a fictional company for twelve months as it learns, decision after decision, to answer it.

It proposes four levels of autonomy, a grid of ten questions, safeguards against the three vulnerabilities of AI that acts, and one central tool: the autonomy licence, written, dated and revocable.

1. 01

   Autonomy does not come from the model, but from the doors you open to it.

   Data, connections, access rights: it is the set-up built around AI that gives it a hold on the real world. Setting it is a leadership decision.

2. 02

   You do not classify a tool, you classify each action.

   Suggest, prepare, execute, orchestrate: the same assistant can sit at several levels depending on the action it performs.

3. 03

   An approval nobody has time to give protects nothing.

   Automation bias quickly turns review into a reflex click. A well-framed level 3 is sometimes safer than a level 2 that has become automatic.

4. 04

   Autonomy is granted on evidence, and withdrawn without drama.

   The autonomy licence sets out what AI can do on its own, what it must have approved and what it will never do, with its conditions for withdrawal written in advance.

1. How to use this paperp. 4
2. Prologue: 9.12 am on a Mondayp. 5
3. The essentials on one pagep. 6
4. 1. Autonomy does not come from the model
   p. 7
5. 2. Four levels, two questions
   p. 9
6. 3. The click that checks nothing
   p. 13
7. 4. Ten questions before you move the dial
   p. 16
8. 5. When a document gives orders
   p. 18
9. 6. The three weaknesses of autonomy
   p. 20
10. 7. What the law requires, and what is good practice
    p. 23
11. 8. The autonomy licence
    p. 26
12. 9. Move forward on evidence, step back without drama
    p. 29
13. 10. Elsewhere, the same mechanism
    p. 31
14. Epilogue: one year onp. 33
15. Toolkitp. 35
16. About U-CIEp. 40
17. Referencesp. 41

• Philippe BuschiniCEO & CTO

• From pilot to enterprise.White paper · 39 pages →