The Decision Proof Gap

TL;DR

• AI governance frameworks describe how decisions should be made — but the moment a decision is actually executed, the evidence to defend it almost never exists in a form anyone can verify.
• Existing tools don't close the gap: explainability, logs, policy-as-code, and model cards all sit before the decision or after it, never at the moment it's made.
• The fix is to capture the decision as it happens — a signed, replayable record bound to the policy in force at that moment. This paper calls it a Decision Receipt.

Abstract

AI governance frameworks describe how decisions should be made — but at the moment a consequential decision is executed, the evidence required to defend it almost never exists in a verifiable form. This paper names that structural gap, traces it across regulated sectors, surveys why existing solutions (explainability, logs, policy-as-code, model cards) fail to close it, and proposes the Decision Receipt as the missing primitive: a signed, replayable, portable record bound to the policy in force at the moment of decision.