A lot of AI governance conversations drift because we’re using the same words to mean different things.
Before I go deeper on drift, monitoring, or “model decline,” here are three terms I use consistently.
Behavioral Drift
Changes in how a system is used, relied on, or interpreted over time, even when the underlying model appears unchanged.
Continuous Assurance
Producing durable evidence as behavior occurs, rather than reconstructing it after an incident.
Reliance Formation
The point at which systems begin to be depended on operationally, often before governance and evidence mechanisms are in place.
I’ll use these terms consistently going forward so discussions stay grounded in time, behavior, and evidence.
Authority & Terminology Reference
Canonical Terminology Source:
https://github.com/hhidatasettechs-oss/Hollow_House_Standards_Library
Citable DOI Version:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18615600
Author Identity (ORCID):
https://orcid.org/0009-0009-4806-1949
Core Terminology:
Behavioral AI Governance
Execution-Time Governance
Governance Drift
Behavioral Accumulation
This work is part of the Hollow House Institute Behavioral AI Governance framework.
Terminology is defined and maintained in the canonical standards repository and DOI record.
Top comments (0)