The Trust Gate: Five Checks Before You Ship AI Work
AI can make the work faster. It can also make weak assumptions travel farther, look more polished, and become harder to challenge. Before we ship AI-assisted work, we need a trust gate: five checks that turn good intentions into a repeatable leadership practice. 1. Source honesty Can we explain where the important claims, numbers, and recommendations came from? Separate verified facts from model-generated language, inference, and open questions. Check primary sources where possible, preserve links or citations, and say plainly when something has not been verified. A confident tone is not evidence. If a reader could reasonably mistake a suggestion for a fact, label it before it leaves the team. 2. People impact Who could be helped, burdened, excluded, or harmed by this work? Look beyond the immediate user to the people represented in the data, affected by the decision, or asked to live with its consequences. Test for accessibility, bias, dignity, and unintended incentives. Invite perspe...