AI Governance Is Trust Engineering, Not Compliance Theater

What Happens When Models Own the Narrative and We Lose the Challenge Function

Why the Future of Intelligence Depends on the Architecture of Accountability

There’s a particular species of corporate delusion that flourishes in moments of technological vertigo: the belief that governance can be purchased as an add-on, implemented as a checklist, and certified as complete. We’ve seen it before, in financial services post-2008, in social media circa 2016, in every industry that discovered consequences arrive faster than controls. Now we’re watching it unfold again in AI, where the stakes are not merely operational but epistemic: the power to define what is true, who is believed, and whose reality counts.

The instinct is predictable. When risk becomes uncomfortable, organizations build a process around it. Process becomes documentation. Documentation becomes a shield. And eventually, the shield becomes costume jewelry, governance as performance art. Recognizable from a distance, nonsensical up close.

But AI systems don’t read your responsible AI policy deck. Models don’…