The Omission Gap: Co-Founder Publishes Position Paper
Our co-founder, James Wright-Zhang RIBA, has published a position paper, The Omission Gap: Defining the Professional Standard of Care for Human Review of AI Outputs, available on SSRN.
The paper analyses the complex failure modes in existing review processes and expectations, from human cognitive science and behaviour, to the relationship between professional competence and the structure of existing AI review language.
The Omission Gap proposes a three-tier review standard for AI-assisted professional documentation in the AEC sector, distinguishing between review methods that can detect omissions and those that structurally cannot. It examines the gap against the ARB Code, the Bolam/Bolitho standard of care, and published positions from PI insurers and specialist brokers. It is written for a primary audience of PI insurance underwriters, construction PI brokers, senior AEC professionals, and professional standards bodies.
The paper has implications for the AI tools ecosystem. Many existing tools support output-to-source verification (catching hallucinations) but do not address source-to-output verification (catching omissions). The framework offers builders, buyers and underwriters a way to talk about which problem a tool actually solves, and helps them assess what tool use might be acceptable in practice when weighed against professional competence requirements.
The paper is published independently and written in tooling-neutral terms.
