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● Remember: Section summary
• Key idea: 4D distributes control across the stages of use instead of leaving it to a vague
final review.
• Practical decision: Write one question and one answer for each stage before any task
that matters.
• Mistake to avoid: Treating verification as a final linguistic step rather than a decision

that begins before data is entered.

4.3 Define: The Task, the Data, the Impact, and the Stopping Condition

◆ Key idea: begin with the impact, not with the capability.
The professional question is not “can AI do this task?” but “which part may be delegated,
what is the impact of error, and what evidence is required before we rely on it?” A
system may be able to produce an answer, but that does not mean using the answer is
appropriate in context.

Define the intended use in one sentence: “using a tool to summarize internal meeting
minutes in order to extract follow-up tasks, with the responsible officer checking names and

dates before distribution.” This sentence fixes the purpose, the material, the output, and the
review. The more specific the use, the more possible it becomes to evaluate it.

Identify the user and the decision owner. The person who requests an output may not be
the person who relies on it. An employee may generate a draft, a manager may approve it,
and a legal or medical specialist may review one specialized aspect. The absence of a clear

decision owner leads to the assumption that whoever pressed the generate button carries
the whole burden of review alone.

Determine the impact of error across four dimensions: harm to people, financial or
operational harm, harm to rights and opportunities, and difficulty of reversal. An error in an
internal heading is easy to fix, but an advanced rejection, the publication of health

information, or the sending of a confidential file may have lasting effects.

Define a stopping condition: when do we halt the tool or escalate the task to an expert?
Examples include the absence of a primary source, the presence of personal data that cannot
be removed, a conflict between the results of two attempts, or a decision that requires a

binding legal interpretation. A stopping condition protects the user from trying to repair an
unsuitable task with an endless series of extra prompts.

In practice, tasks can be classified as low, medium, or high impact, with a fourth category
that the organization’s policy does not permit at all. The classification is not a fixed judgment

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