Mandate, Delegation and Autonomy Tools

All courses / Tools / Module 6 / Chapter 18

Learning objectives

After the lesson the participant can:

Distinguish a mandate manifest from a delegation profile by what each bounds and who reads it.
Set a ceiling per action class from reversibility, blast radius, evidence and window.
Draft a delegation profile for one agent on one service with an autonomy budget and stop holders.
Explain the evidence needed to raise a level and the events that lower it at once.

Key concepts

Mandate manifest: A file, family MND, that bounds one agent: scope, action classes and levels, approvals, credentials, budgets, prohibitions and stop path, with a named owner. It is read by the systems that enforce it, such as the identity provider and the policy decision point.
Delegation profile: A file, family DLG, that records the degree of delegation for a system, team or service per function or action class, so that a supervisor, an auditor or a works council can read in one file what has been delegated.
Delegation ceiling: The ceiling for an action class on a service is the lowest of four written answers: reversibility, blast radius, evidence and window. A model's confidence score does not lift a ceiling, because it does not change what a wrong action costs.
Autonomy budget: A method of AI Operations: a tolerance for faulty actions per window and Level 3 class, counted by the observer, with review at 70 per cent and demotion by one level at 100 per cent. The default window is 28 days.
Reversibility test: A test, introduced in AI Threat, Chapter 26, of working without the AI for a delegated function, recorded with the delegation register entry. It is run at least yearly and after any step that removes human review.

Interactive exercises

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

Interactive exercise 1 · Sort

Ceilings in one delegation profile

Sort each action class into the ceiling that Hansa Mutual's profile DLG-HM-OPS-001 sets for its IT-operations agent.

Interactive exercise 2 · Scenario

Raising a ceiling

Choose how the request should be handled, following the chapter's rules on promotion and demotion.

Teaching plan

20 min	Present Figure 18.1 and Table 18.1, the same prefixes in six books. Establish the three readings: mandate per agent, profile per system, and adopt the numbers of the book you copy.
20 min	Teach scales and ceilings: the five levels, the eleven action classes, the four answers that set a ceiling and the four cases where Level 4 is never used.
20 min	Read the worked profile DLG-HM-OPS-001 row by row, with its budget, then the rules for promotion and demotion: shadow period, held-out evaluation, seeded fault and drilled stop.
35 min	Exercise: groups write a delegation profile and the key fields of a mandate for one agent on one service.
10 min	Groups swap profiles and look for a Level 3 entry that names no runbook, no enforcement point or no observer.

Discussion

AI Blue says confidence is the input that does least for a ceiling. Why is a high model score so often used to argue for more autonomy, and how would you answer the argument?
Unused tolerance in an autonomy budget is not banked, and the book warns that a budget can become a target to be gamed. What gaming would you expect, and who is placed to see it?
A mandate nobody reviews decays to Level 0 when its evidence expires. What does this rule demand of the people who own agents in your organisation?

Written exercise

Exercise · 35 minutes

A delegation profile for one agent on one service

Choose one agent your organisation runs or plans, or the IT-operations agent of Hansa Mutual on its claims core system. Write a delegation profile in the form of AI Operations. List at least six action classes from the eleven (for example read, notify, restart, reconfigure, roll back, delete) and set a ceiling for each as the lowest of four answers: reversibility, blast radius, evidence and window. For each Level 3 class name the runbook, the enforcement point outside the agent and the probe that verifies the effect. Add the autonomy budget (window and tolerance per class), the review interval, the authority that may raise a ceiling and the stop holders. State that anything unlisted is undelegated.

Deliverable: A delegation profile with six or more action classes, reasoned ceilings, runbook and probe per Level 3 class, autonomy budget, level authority and stop holders.

Your work

Self-test

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

According to the chapter's readings of the books, what is the difference between a mandate and a delegation profile?
Show the answer
A. The mandate belongs to the agent; the delegation profile belongs to the system, team or service
The first reading the chapter draws from the books is that the mandate belongs to the agent and the delegation profile to the system, team or service. Both are artefacts of the organisation.
Who counts the faulty actions against an autonomy budget?
Show the answer
C. The independent observer, not the agent
The observer counts, not the agent. The chapter's Summary names a budget counted by the agent itself as an example of a broken link that leaves a label without a control.
In the worked profile DLG-HM-OPS-001, what is the ceiling for the action class fail over?
Show the answer
D. Level 1 Assisted, with the incident commander as approver
The table gives fail over a ceiling of Level 1 with the incident commander as approver. Level 4 applies only to read and annotate, and roll back sits at Level 2 as a candidate for Level 3.