Most systems treat logging as smoke routed away from the real work. In artificial intelligence, the trustworthy record of what happened is the thing people actually buy. Build the receipt first.
Most systems treat logging as exhaust, smoke routed away from the real work. I argue the opposite: in artificial intelligence systems, the trustworthy record of what happened is the actual product. Audit-first design builds that record first, signed before the act, sealed into a chain, and verifiable offline by anyone who trusts no one.
Originally published on mickai.co.uk. This is a cross-post; the canonical version, with the full body, footnotes and references, lives on the mickai.co.uk article page.
