The AI Traffic Light Model
The first question about AI in an organization isn't where to start. It's where using it would do more damage than good. A simple traffic-light model sorts every use into green (AI executes), yellow (AI assists, a human decides), and red (AI does not decide), and five boundaries define the red zone: hard-to-reverse actions, human accountability, data the organization doesn't control, judging people on partial information, and domains with nobody able to check the output.
The three zones
- Green — AI can execute
- Low cost of error
- The action is reversible
- The data isn't especially sensitive
- The output is relatively easy to check
- There's a clear definition of a good result
- Yellow — AI assists, a person decides — There's meaningful business or human impact. AI can organize information, surface patterns, and recommend. It shouldn't make the call alone.
- Red — AI does not make the decision
- High cost of error
- The action is hard or impossible to reverse
- The decision affects rights, health, money, or a career
- You can't explain how the decision was reached
- Nobody is qualified to genuinely supervise the system
The five boundaries of the red zone
- Decisions that are hard to reverse
- Human accountability
- Systems the organization doesn't control
- Judging a reality it can't actually see
- Places where nobody can check it
What is the maximum damage the system can do before someone notices?