Writing
I write about who absorbs the failure when an automated decision is wrong, and what it takes for the correction to reach them.
11 selected here, out of 230+ at The Crumple Zone · RSS feed
Start here
- People Are Not the Error-Correcting Layer Why apparent performance is always designed performance plus unaccounted human compensation.
- You Don’t Have the Right In this Age of Appeals, you have the paper right. And a stamina test.
- Toothless Ethics: Why Principles Don’t Stop Machines A guide to the difference between moral language and structural constraint
More essays
- The Competence Physicians Already Have Medical training grades judgment. Products don’t.
- The Stop Button Was Removed Any Toyota worker can pull the cord that stops the line. Administrative systems took the stop button out. Put it back.
- Nobody Points “Next Best Action” at Themselves Theory of Constraints, career-capital theory, RICE scoring, decision journals, and XP gamification, run as one script instead of five separate literatures.
- The Official Record Is Late What lab research, healthcare products, and company building taught me to check
- Don’t Let Reassurance Do Engineering’s Job Why “we care” substitutes for obligation — and how delay gets disguised as kindness.
- If Every User Is a Potential Threat People are not becoming dishonest. They are becoming game-theoretically optimal for the environment they have been placed in.
- How to Design for Cognitive Scarcity Stop designing for the idealized “Hero User.” Build resilient interfaces that work when your user is stressed, tired, and operating on 15% battery.
- Pending: The Political Economy of Waiting The loading screen is the most powerful weapon in the modern state
How it works in practice
- Framework Authorizing and correcting AI systems A worked example, four stages of approval, and a six-step review for when evidence changes.
- Current work Software and evaluations Agent permissions, source-change detection, and draft tests of error recovery, alongside NextConsensus’s forecasts.
- Standards Ethotechnics technical standards Proposed standards covering decision registers, contestability, resolution latency, evidence calibration, delegation records, and runtime revocation.
Revised