Accountability

Attribution is not accountability. An actor is identifiable, which gives attribution — it can always be said what acted. A human is accountable, which gives consequence.

Where an agent holds a role, accountability is derivative: it attaches to the human who delegated. The chain may be zero-length, when a human acts directly.

A model version can be named in a log. It cannot be fired, sued, or sign a contractual assurance.

Delegation

The act of authorising a given actor to hold a given role, for a given scope. It is recorded, because it is where accountability lands.

Two rules bound it:

• Ceiling — nobody may delegate a role they do not themselves hold. You cannot grant what you do not have.
• Least privilege — the actor receives what its role requires, and the resources it is given at the moment of delegation. Nothing further.

Nothing is undelegable. In principle the whole practice may run on agent actors. When a delegation goes wrong the fault does not disappear — it relocates to the scoping act, which is recorded and therefore reviewable. The delegating human is answerable for having scoped it wrongly.