AI Ethics Compass.
A working tool for leaders navigating the ethical surface area of AI deployment — agency, attribution, asymmetry, accountability. Not a manifesto. A decision instrument.
Four working questions, not a manifesto.
AI ethics manifestos are easy to write and impossible to apply. The Compass replaces the manifesto with four working questions a leader can ask before any consequential AI deployment. Each question has a defensible answer or it does not — and the absence of a defensible answer is itself the diagnostic.
Four questions, asked before any deployment.
Agency
Whose decision is being made by this system? The user's? The team's? The model's? Name the actual decision-maker.
Attribution
When the system gets it right, who gets the credit? When it gets it wrong, who carries the blame? Both must be named.
Asymmetry
Who benefits from the deployment? Who bears the cost? If the same group does both, the deployment is fine. If not, redesign.
Accountability
If the system harms a person, what is the remedy path? Name it explicitly. If it cannot be named, the system is not deployable.
Three anonymised cases.
HR deploying AI for screening resumes
Compass surfaced asymmetry — candidates bore the cost of the model's biases without recourse. Deployment paused.
Process redesigned. Bias audit added. Deployment relaunched 4 months later with full accountability path.
Marketing team using AI for personalisation
Attribution unclear when the AI made suggestions the team didn't endorse. Compass forced explicit naming.
Attribution policy locked. Team morale up. Campaign performance held.
Engineering team deploying code-suggesting AI
Agency question revealed the model was making more decisions than the leader realised. Boundary redesigned.
Code review process tightened. Production incidents down 40%.
Cases anonymised by sector and seniority. Numerical outcomes are exact and locked in the engagement scorecards.
RE:CODE™ integration.
AI Ethics Compass runs inside RE:CODE™ Step 5 (Sprint Three) before any new AI deployment crosses the systemic-redesign threshold.