What it is
Tech companies like to sell themselves as Prometheus: liberators, visionaries, bringers of fire. The test asks three plain questions of any deployment:
- Competence: does it actually work, and does anyone understand how?
- Accountability: when it fails, who answers for it?
- Consent: did the people affected agree to carry the risk?
Watch for externalized risk, costs pushed onto users and the public, and privatized gain, benefits kept by the company. Watch for opaque filters, moderation or gating with hidden criteria, and for policy theater, bold proposals with no workable structure underneath.
How it shows up for me
I wrote about this in Spanish, in an essay about AI companies. I use these tools all day and I’m grateful for them, which is exactly why I want them to pass the test.