The Notation: One Picture, Drawn the Same Way Every Time

All courses / Landscape / Module 1 / Chapter 4

Learning objectives

After the lesson the participant can:

• Read a single mark aloud, naming all seven dimensions and the question each answers.
• Explain the empty corner and the red outline rule for a Level 3 Bounded mark without a filled diamond.
• Select the view, V1 to V6, that answers a given question about a landscape.
• Draw a set of units by hand as marks on the autonomy by reversibility grid.

Key concepts

Unit and mark

A unit is one AI use: one way in which an organisation puts a model to work, with the people who work with it. The same model used in two ways is two units. Contour draws each unit as one mark.

The seven dimensions

Autonomy level as the column, reversibility tier as the row, reach as the size, usage mode as the colour, identity as the shape, control as a diamond and a seat, and evidence as a baseline. Every mark carries these and nothing else.

The empty corner

The top-right cell, Level 4 Autonomous at R4 Irreversible, shaded in every view. Its emptiness is a rule of the drawing, not a finding: a landscape that put a mark there would be flagged, not hidden.

Delegated access without delegation

The book's own term for a circle at Level 3 Bounded or above: a person's account being used without that person approving each action. A square there is an agent.

Frames and views

Three frames, boundary, time and comparison, arrange the marks and add no dimension. Six views are each defined once: V1 one-page landscape, V2 over time, V3 supply and sovereignty, V4 decision rights, V5 evidence, V6 comparison.

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. The notation draws no judgement of value and cannot say which of two organisations is better governed. What is gained and what is lost by that restraint?
2. Hansa Mutual's IT-operations agent sits at Level 3 and R3 although no single action of it is both. Is the rule that produces this mark cautious in the right way, and what would the opposite rule hide?
3. People appear in the notation only as the seat. What does that choice say about the question the book asks of people, and what would an organisation chart add or confuse?

Written exercise

Self-test

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

1. A unit performs several kinds of action. According to the chapter, at which column is its mark drawn?

   1. At the level of the action it performs most often in a year
   2. At the average of the levels of all its actions, rounded down
   3. At the highest level it holds for any action that changes something outside the unit
   4. At the highest level it holds for any action at all, read-only actions such as enriching an alert included
   Show the answer

   C. At the highest level it holds for any action that changes something outside the unit
   The mark is drawn at the highest level held for any action that changes something outside the unit. Read-only actions do not set the column, because autonomy over a read changes nothing that would need undoing.

2. How does Contour draw a Level 3 Bounded mark that has no filled diamond, and why?

   1. Hollow with a cross through it, because a unit without a policy point counts as retired until one is enforced
   2. With a thin red outline, because such a mark is Level 4 with a misleading label
   3. With a dashed baseline, because its evidence is only attested
   4. In the empty corner, because it cannot be reversed
   Show the answer

   B. With a thin red outline, because such a mark is Level 4 with a misleading label
   The drawing rule follows AI Red Team, Chapter 6: a Level 3 capability without a policy point outside the model is Level 4 with a misleading label, so the mark is drawn with a thin red outline.

3. Reach is drawn as one of four sizes. What does the class XL count?

   1. 10,000 or more transactions handled by the unit in a month
   2. More than half of the organisation's employees
   3. 10,000 or more euros of cost per year
   4. 10,000 or more people whose work or outcomes the unit's actions touch in a year
   Show the answer

   D. 10,000 or more people whose work or outcomes the unit's actions touch in a year
   Reach is an absolute count of people touched in a year, not a share of the organisation and not transactions: S under 100, M 100 to 999, L 1,000 to 9,999 and XL 10,000 and more.