UPAP
What Does It Mean to "Use" AI?
UPAP — Ultimate Principal-Agent Problem. When you delegate what you cannot do yourself, you face a structural problem: you cannot evaluate the outcome. This ancient problem, which humanity has spent centuries addressing, re-emerges without institutional safeguards with AI as the new agent.
Signaling (credentials, certifications), screening (second opinions, audits), reputation systems — the book traces the institutional infrastructure humanity built to manage information asymmetry. None of these mechanisms exist yet for AI outputs — hallucinations and accurate answers arrive in the same confident tone.
Through four spiraling passes over three root themes — asymmetry, cognition, and institutions — the book re-examines the requirements of the principal.
Contents
- The User in a Lemon Market
- To Understand Is to Divide
- Hiroyuki's Prophecy
- Signals and Screens
- Knowing What You Don't Know
- The Invention of Licensing
- The Ultimate Agent
- Do Humans "Understand"?
- An Expert Without Credentials
- Tacit Knowledge and Context
- The Ability Not to Use
- The Principal's Requirements