3. The Four Questions

Before asking AI to do anything, you should be able to answer four questions.

  1. What is the intended outcome?
  2. What constraints must be respected?
  3. What does success actually look like?
  4. How will the results be validated?

If these cannot be answered first, the issue is not AI risk. It is lack of governance.

They will recur throughout this course. Each one anchors a discipline:

QuestionDiscipline
What constraints must be respected?Module 1 — Scope
What does the system need to know?Module 2 — Context
What does success look like, and who says so?Module 3 — Approval
How do we know that answer still holds?Module 4 — Warrant

Try answering all four, right now, for one piece of AI-assisted work you are currently responsible for. The one you cannot answer is where this course will be most useful to you.