World Model Readiness The first 24 hours decide it

Module · The first 24 hours decide it

The AI Crisis Communication Check

When an AI failure becomes public, the damage is set less by the failure than by how you respond in the first day. Silence reads as guilt, a bad statement reads as evasion, and both are hard to walk back. This module checks the five things that decide whether you can speak fast and well: prepared statements, a ready spokesperson, an escalation path to comms, clarity on who you must notify, and the discipline to hold one honest story.

Question 1 of 5 · Statements are drafted

If an AI system failed publicly tomorrow, is there anything already written to work from?

The worst time to draft your first public statement is while the story is breaking and the lawyers and executives are arguing. Holding statements for the plausible AI failure scenarios, written calm and reviewed in advance, turn hours of panic into minutes of editing. A blank page at hour one is how bad statements get made.

Question 2 of 5 · A spokesperson is ready

Is there a named person who could credibly speak about an AI failure on short notice?

Explaining an AI failure needs someone who can be both accurate and human, under questions from people who assume the worst. That is a specific skill, and the person who has it should be known and rehearsed before the crisis, not chosen during it. An unprepared spokesperson can turn a contained problem into the story.

Question 3 of 5 · Escalation reaches comms fast

When an AI problem is spotted, does it reach the people who handle communications quickly?

AI failures often surface first with an engineer or a support agent, far from anyone thinking about public response. If there is no fast path from there to comms and leadership, you learn about the crisis from a journalist. The clock starts when the problem is spotted, not when comms hears about it.

Question 4 of 5 · Notification duties are clear

Do you know who you are legally required to notify, and how fast, after an AI incident?

An AI failure can trigger hard deadlines: data breach notifications in hours, regulatory reports, contractual duties to customers. Missing a notification window adds a compliance failure on top of the original incident. These clocks are known in advance or missed in the moment.

Question 5 of 5 · One story, held straight

Could you keep one honest, consistent account across the whole incident?

Under pressure, the story fractures: engineering says one thing, sales another, and an early claim that turns out wrong poisons everything that follows. Post-incident discipline means one accurate narrative, corrected as facts firm up, owned by someone. The cover-up, or the contradiction, is usually worse than the failure.

For the statistics · one click each

Three questions for the public picture

These do not affect your score. They feed the anonymised, aggregated statistics; groups under 8 respondents are never shown.

How prepared are you to communicate about an AI failure?

Not at all
General crisis plan only
Some AI-specific prep
Drafts and spokesperson ready
Prepared and rehearsed

Is there a named person ready to speak about an AI incident?

No one
Whoever is available
Named, not briefed
Named and briefed
Named and media-trained

Have you ever had to communicate publicly about an AI problem?

Never
Internally only
Yes, handled well
Yes, it went badly
Prefer not to say

Your context

Used to calibrate the report. Company size and sector remain in the anonymized dataset; your email does not.