Who Can Pull The Plug: The Plug Always Exists; The Questions Are Who, Blast Radius, Speed, Side Effects, And What Cannot Be Recovered

Summary

The series-defining brief: the plug almost always exists, so the question is never whether one exists but the profile of pulling it — who, blast radius, speed, side effects, recoverability. Recoverability is the hard limit money cannot cross: a risk with an irreversible outcome is a different object from a recoverable one. Agents removed the slow-consequence tolerance that let organisations defer these questions, which is the why-now — this is not an AI governance problem but the governance organisations never built, exposed by agents.

Key concepts

• The plug profile — five dimensions: who, blast radius, speed, side effects, recoverability — AOMM Level 4 is this profile, tested
• Recoverability as the hard limit — what cannot be undone must be governed by prevention and the most senior acceptance

Key ideas

• The old binary of no-plug-to-pull was really recoverability being zero.
• The question is the best front door to the acceptance machinery because it is concrete, honest, and exposes the gap.
• Plug-profile completeness is a maturity probe, computed from evidence rather than claimed.

On this site

Curated under 'who can pull the plug?' in the collection; composes with the AOMM at Level 4 (Contained).

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