Consentful deployment pause playbook
A responsible AI steward negotiated the right to pause launch until refusal criteria, accountability partners, and post-launch monitoring were in place.
A coalition of product, policy, and community partners aligned on readiness questions that centered impacted residents, ensuring the benefits screening pilot launched with informed consent and resourcing to respond when harm emerged.
The pressure to launch overshadowed consent.
A city agency was ready to pilot an algorithmic benefits screener, but frontline advocates raised unresolved questions about data use, refusal options, and ongoing repair.
Risks surfaced
- Residents had limited visibility into how eligibility decisions were generated.
- Vendor contract lacked commitments for harm review or timeline for fixes.
- Community partners were asked to absorb support calls without compensation.
Ethotechnics remit
- Codify refusal criteria and the authority to pause launch.
- Design cross-partner accountability rituals for post-launch monitoring.
- Build multilingual consent journeys aligned with community norms.
Conditions required before launch.
Consent narrative workshop
Residents, interpreters, and policy leads rewrote disclosures so every data use and appeal path was explained in plain language across five languages.
Launch pause authority
An agreement empowered the responsible AI steward and resident advisory co-chair to halt rollout until readiness questions scored green.
Harm review council
Monthly council with vendor, agency, and community members reviewed flagged cases, approved remediation budgets, and published public notes.
Consent telemetry
Instrumentation captured opt-outs, appeals, and translation gaps, feeding alerts to the council within 24 hours.
Launch moved forward with shared accountability.
- Consent comprehension
- 92% of pilot participants reported understanding how to refuse or appeal decisions.
- Escalation response time
- High-severity cases received review within 48 hours through the new council process.
- Community compensation
- Partners received stipends and backfill support for hotline coverage, reducing burnout indicators.
Deliverables anchoring the pause playbook.
- Readiness questionnaire – Scoring rubric, refusal criteria, and escalation triggers.
- Consent script kit – Plain-language copy in five languages plus interpreter briefing notes.
- Harm council charter – Roles, cadence, stipend structure, and publication commitments.
Explore how these templates could work for your launch: start a conversation.