Price the Job, Not the Tool

Part 5 - The Four Pillars of Trust: The Hard Problems of Outcome-Based AI

Chapter 10: The Measurement Problem: “Did the AI Really Do That?”

The Risk-Reward Pact we designed in the previous chapter is an elegant and powerful economic framework. The “Real Options” approach provides a rational, step-by-step process for building the mutual confidence required to sign the deal. We have, in effect, built the human foundation of trust.

But in the unforgiving world of business, trust is not a financial instrument. It is an insufficient and unreliable ledger for a multi-million-dollar partnership. The entire outcome-based model, for all its conceptual brilliance, rests on a single, non-negotiable, and brutally technical pillar: irrefutable measurement.

If the outcome cannot be measured, it cannot be priced. If the measurement is ambiguous, the price will be contested. And if the price is cont…