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The AI Agent Factory

7.3 Choose the rung: reversibility, familiarity, exposure

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Panaversity ·
8 min read

In everyday life. On the first night, a new babysitter may make dinner (reversible, low reach). But they do not drive the children to a party (hard to undo, wide reach) until you have seen how they handle the evening.

Three questions set the rung, or level, for each action on the autonomy ladder: observe, recommend, draft or execute. Ask all three, and the most cautious answer wins.

Start from the rung the job needs, the proposed rung. A ceiling is the highest rung an action may reach. Each question can set a lower ceiling, never a higher one, and the action gets the lowest ceiling of the three.

  1. Reversibility. Can the action be undone, fully and cheaply? A payment, a sent email, a deleted file and a changed record of truth, such as the vendor record, where each supplier's details are kept, cannot. Keep those at draft or below.
  2. Familiarity. Has this worker done this task, under this envelope, its written limits, with evidence that it went right? A first run gets a ceiling one rung below the proposed rung, but never below observe. And you watch the first run.
  3. Exposure. How much can the action reach? More connectors to other apps, folders, signed-in sites and outside people mean a lower ceiling. The worker's owner judges how much lower.

Reversibility has one exception. An action that cannot be undone may go above draft if the harm is small and bounded. That needs three things: a fixed limit, a destination on record, such as an address already in the vendor record, and evidence that the action goes right.

Chapter 6 used two of these facts, reversibility and exposure, to set how closely you check afterward. Here they set how much the worker may do first.

A worked example. Answering a vendor's status question needs execute, because the reply must be sent. Reversibility sets its ceiling at draft. A sent email cannot be taken back, and there is no evidence yet for the exception for small, bounded harm. Familiarity also sets the ceiling at draft, because the task is new. Exposure allows execute, because replies go only to addresses on record. The lowest ceiling is draft, so the worker drafts and Maria, the office manager, sends.

The same reply, with evidence. Suppose four weekly runs have since passed the Review Contract, the checks agreed before the work, with no missed escalation. The job still needs execute. Reversibility now allows execute, because the harm is small and bounded: status replies only, to addresses on record, with that evidence. Familiarity allows execute, because the worker has done this task and it went right. Exposure still allows execute. No question sets a lower ceiling, so Dave, the controller who owns the envelope, may let the worker send.

Some actions are not on the ladder at all. At Brightline, the wholesale company in this book's story, changing a vendor record, approving or releasing a payment, and forwarding any file outside the company are never automated, at any rung.

Raise an action's rung only on evidence such as those four weekly runs. The owner decides how much evidence is enough. Record the change in the envelope, with the date and who decided. After a failure, lower the rung immediately. As the sixth principle of this book's first edition says, autonomy is earned for each type of task, not given by default.1

The title reads "Three questions set the rung." The line below it reads "Start with the proposed rung. Check all three. Use the lowest ceiling." A gold bar says to first exclude actions the envelope never delegates. Three boxes follow. One, Reversibility, asks whether the action can be undone fully and cheaply. If no, it is draft or below. An exception needs small, bounded harm, a fixed limit, a known destination and evidence. Two, Familiarity, asks whether this worker has done this task successfully under this envelope. If no, it is one rung below the proposed rung, never below Observe, and you watch the first run. Three, Exposure, asks how much the action can reach. Wider reach sets a lower ceiling. Consider tools, data, signed-in accounts and recipients, and the owner decides how far to lower it. All three lead to a dark bar. It says the lowest ceiling sets the authorized rung, and a safer answer cannot cancel a riskier one. An example follows, a new vendor-status reply with Execute as the proposed rung. Reversibility says Draft, familiarity says Draft, and exposure says Execute, for known recipients only. Final: Draft. The worker prepares and Maria sends. Two boxes sit at the foot. Raise only on evidence, which the owner records in the envelope with the date and decision. Lower after a failure, reducing authority at once, then investigating. A footer reads: autonomy is earned per task type.

Figure 7.3. First take out the actions that are never automated, then ask the three questions.

Check yourself

Question 1 / 8

0 answered

Which three questions set an action's rung, in order?

Sources

  1. The Agent Factory Thesis, Panaversity, first edition.↑
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