The Permission Ladder
How much autonomy you give an AI permission to have.
Higher rung = more autonomy, more standing access ↑
Auto
Nobody presses go - a trigger does: a clock at 8am, or an incoming email. It runs and reports back with nobody watching.
Run
You press go, then walk away. You start a single task, get on with something else, and come back to the result. It finishes while you're gone, but only moves when you tell it to.
Ask
You ask, it answers. You're present for every step and nothing happens without you - the chat box. Almost everyone starts here.
The trade
Each rung up costs more standing access than the one below. The more independence you give a system, the more permission it holds whether you're there or not - and that, not how clever the tool is, is what you're really deciding.
Not to be confused with
Not the Three Ways of Working: the Ways say who does the work and who watches; the Ladder sets how much autonomy you permit a task to have.
When to use Onboarding any AI like a new hire: how much does it do without you? Ask which rung a task actually needs before you grant it - most useful work lives at Run, an easier yes than Auto.
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