Introduction to AI Platform and Security

All courses / AI Platform and Security / Module 1 / Chapter 1

Learning objectives

After the lesson the participant can:

• Explain why the platform around a model matters more for incidents and audit findings than the choice of model.
• Describe the four properties of AI systems that break classical assumptions and the platform response to each.
• Compare Nordvik Region and Hansa Mutual on the axes that shape a platform.
• Draft a platform onboarding declaration with purpose, prohibited uses, data boundary and evidence.

Key concepts

AI Architecture

The practice of designing, governing and operating AI systems, meaning their data, models, prompts, orchestration and surrounding controls, as codified, version-controlled, evidence-producing architecture, so that behaviour, risk, cost and legal position stay under the organisation's control throughout the lifecycle.

The AI platform

The shared, centrally operated set of capabilities on which an organisation's AI systems are built, run and observed, together with the controls that constrain them. It is a product with an owner, and its purpose is to make the safe path the easy one.

Controls outside the model

Because a large language model receives instructions and data through the same channel, any text it reads can act as a command. The platform therefore controls what retrieval may return, which tools may be called under whose authority, and what checks an output must clear.

Platform onboarding declaration

A file in the repository stating a system's purpose, legal position, components, data boundary and evidence. The onboarding pipeline provisions no gateway route until the declaration is complete.

Three tensions

Speed against control, autonomy against accountability and innovation against sovereignty, named in AI Governance, Chapter 1. This book meets each as a platform question: pipeline gates, identities with stop paths and logs, and routing, hosting and exit decisions per workload.

Interactive exercises

Do them here and get feedback at once. Choose a card and then where it belongs, or drag it.

Teaching plan

Discussion

1. Which of the four properties causes most difficulty in your organisation today, and which platform capability is missing for it?
2. The book says the platform should make the approved route faster than the unofficial one. Where is the unofficial route faster in your organisation, and why?
3. Nordvik Region steers its AI through contracts and Hansa Mutual through its own platform. Which situation is closer to yours, and what leverage does that give you?

Written exercise

Self-test

Choose an answer to see whether it is right, or open the answer below each question.

1. Why does the chapter say the platform must place its controls outside the model rather than rely on a filter?

   1. Because filters add latency that makes conversational assistants unusable for staff
   2. Because instructions and data share one channel, and no filter can list every wording that might steer the model
   3. Because the AI Act forbids providers from filtering the inputs of a high-risk AI system
   4. Because foundation model vendors do not allow licensees to add filters of their own
   Show the answer

   B. Because instructions and data share one channel, and no filter can list every wording that might steer the model
   An LLM receives instructions and data through the same channel, so any text it reads can act as a command. A filter cannot list every wording, so controls sit on retrieval, tools and output checks.

2. According to the chapter, where do AI Governance and AI Platform and Security meet?

   1. At the model, which both books select
   2. At the budget, which both books approve
   3. At the supplier contract, which both books draft
   4. At the evidence the platform produces
   Show the answer

   D. At the evidence the platform produces
   Governance decides what must be true of an AI system; the platform enforces those decisions and produces proof of enforcement. The two volumes meet at the evidence.

3. In the onboarding declaration of Nordvik Region's staff assistant, what does the setting that allows no agent tools achieve?

   1. A proposal to let the assistant file letters becomes a reviewed change to the declaration
   2. The assistant is reclassified as a high-risk AI system under Annex III point 5, with the duties of Article 26
   3. The assistant may be used only by the small platform team that also runs the Region's coding agent
   4. The gateway logs of the assistant no longer need to be retained for the 120 months the file declares
   Show the answer

   A. A proposal to let the assistant file letters becomes a reviewed change to the declaration
   The chapter explains that the field turns any proposal to give the assistant an action, such as filing letters, into a reviewed change to the file.