RFC-032: Post-Hoc Evaluation Loop — 1. Problem Statement

AIGP Specification › RFC-032: Post-Hoc Evaluation Loop › 1. Problem Statement

Section index · 2. Proposed Extension: Post-Hoc Evaluation Loop →

RFC-032: Post-Hoc Evaluation Loop

PRIVATE AND PROPRIETARY — NOT A PUBLIC RFC. Owned by Kanjani AI Research & Causum. See NOTICE.md.

Status: DRAFT

Authors: Kanjani AI Research & Causum

Date: 2026-06-24

Depends On: RFC-010 (AIGP Base Protocol), RFC-010a (Multi-Agent Governance), RFC-010b (Temporal Chaining), RFC-024 (D-DNA for Governed Autonomy), RFC-026 (Human Feedback Signal)

1. Problem Statement

1.1 The Governance-Quality Non-Causality

AIGP proves that AI actions were governed — authorized, bounded, observable, and jurisdictionally compliant. It does not prove that governed actions were good.

This is not a bug. It is a structural property:

Quality cannot be established without Governance (governance is a necessary precondition)
Quality is not implied by Governance (governance is not a sufficient condition)
Therefore: Governance and Quality are not causally related

The relationship is prerequisite, not causal. Governance provides the substrate on which quality can be defined and enforced, but governance alone cannot produce quality.

1.2 The Tautology of Observation

A governed system that only records what happened cannot evaluate whether what happened was correct. The statement “what happened is what should have happened” is circular — it uses the outcome as evidence of its own correctness.

Every observed outcome is, trivially, what occurred. That tells you nothing about whether it was:

Anticipated — did the outcome match what governance intended to produce?
Desirable — did the outcome serve the purpose for which the action was authorized?
Reproducible — would the same governance configuration produce the same outcome again?

Without a mechanism to compare outcomes against prior expectations, governance degenerates into bookkeeping.

1.3 The Missing Temporal Phase

AIGP currently operates in two temporal phases:

Phase	AIGP Primitive	Function
PRE-HOC	CHECK, TOOL_REQUEST, PLAN_SUBMIT	Declare intent, request authorization
PERI-HOC	STEP_COMPLETE, TRACE spans	Record execution as it happens

The missing third phase:

Phase	AIGP Primitive	Function
POST-HOC	(does not exist)	Compare outcome to anticipation

RECORD captures what happened. It does not compare what happened to what was expected to happen. This RFC introduces the post-hoc evaluation loop to close the gap.

Section index · 2. Proposed Extension: Post-Hoc Evaluation Loop →