Human and AI Responsibility Map
Make task boundaries, approval, and escalation explicit.
Use this guide to structure a discussion, then record your answers in the editable template or printable PDF. Use synthetic or authorized information. A named person owns each decision.
1. Assign responsibility by step
Record the work at the level where a person can tell whether the system acted within its boundary. Avoid assigning accountability to AI.
- AI may
- Which bounded action is permitted?
- AI may not
- Which action is outside its authority?
- Human review
- Who checks what, using which evidence?
- Approval owner
- Who authorizes the consequential action?
See a completed companion example
- AI may
- Find policy passages and draft a cited explanation.
- AI may not
- Decide eligibility, access personal files, change a record, or send an answer.
- Human review
- Policy specialist checks the current policy, citation support, and case category.
- Approval owner
- Service-desk analyst sends only after specialist approval during the pilot.
2. Specify exceptions
Write a trigger and a response rather than a general promise of human oversight.
- Escalation trigger
- What observed condition requires a person?
- Escalation destination
- Who receives the case, and what context do they need?
- Stop and fallback
- Who can pause the workflow, and how does work continue?
- Review cadence
- Who checks whether boundaries still fit the work?
See a completed companion example
- Escalation trigger
- Missing policy, conflicting sources, individual eligibility, or a request for restricted information.
- Escalation destination
- Policy specialist receives the question, cited excerpts, and the reason the draft was withheld.
- Stop and fallback
- Service-desk lead pauses drafting; analysts return to approved manual policy lookup.
- Review cadence
- Owner reviews exceptions weekly during the pilot and after any source change.
Record the next decision.
What will you do next, who owns it, and when will you review the evidence? Keep unresolved assumptions visible.