Risk & safety
The Verification Tax
If checking the output takes as long as doing the task, the ROI is zero.
Net Value = Time Saved Drafting − Time Spent Verifying
High-verification work - regulatory submissions, anything safety-critical - makes a poor first pilot. And the tax is not fixed: it falls as the user's fluency rises.
The slop trap
Skip the check and the tax does not vanish - it moves to whoever gets the output next. Passing unverified work to a colleague is how AI slop is made.
When to use When judging whether a task is worth automating at all.
Open the Verification Tax calculator →