Module · Can you question what you approve

The Board Member's AI Check

You are asked to approve AI strategies, budgets and risk appetites, and your signature carries a duty of oversight that does not pause for a technology you find unfamiliar. The danger is not that you lack a data science degree; it is nodding along to a management narrative you cannot test. This module checks the five things that let you govern rather than rubber-stamp: your own literacy, the questions you can ask, independence from the story you are told, a clear view of risk appetite, and a sense of what good looks like elsewhere.

Question 1 of 5 · You understand enough

Do you personally understand AI well enough to govern it, not just approve it?

You do not need to build models, but you do need to know what they can and cannot do, where they fail, and what the words in the board pack actually mean. Oversight you cannot exercise is oversight in name only.

Question 2 of 5 · You have the right questions

When management presents an AI plan, do you know what to ask?

The most valuable thing a director brings is the question that exposes an unexamined assumption. What is the failure mode, who is accountable, what does it cost when it is wrong, how do we know it works: if you cannot ask these, you cannot test the plan.

Question 3 of 5 · You think independently

Can you form a view on an AI initiative independent of what management tells you?

Management writes the board pack, chooses the metrics and frames the story. That is not a criticism, it is the structure, and it is exactly why a director needs an independent read. A board that only knows what it is shown is governed by the people it is meant to govern.

Question 4 of 5 · You can name the risk appetite

Could you state, in plain terms, how much AI risk this company should accept?

Setting risk appetite is a board duty, not a management one. If you cannot say where the line sits, how much autonomy is too much, what failure is unacceptable, then the line is being drawn operationally by whoever ships next, without you.

Question 5 of 5 · You know what good looks like

Do you have any outside reference for whether this company's AI approach is sound?

Judged only against its own plan, every initiative looks reasonable. Calibration comes from outside: peer boards, other sectors, how comparable organisations handle the same risk. Without it you cannot tell ambition from recklessness or caution from paralysis.

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 often does AI reach your board's agenda as a real item?

Never

Only after incidents

Occasionally

A standing item

Central to strategy

Where does your own AI understanding come from?

Nowhere in particular

Mostly management

General media

Deliberate education

My own background

Can the board get AI advice independent of management?

Informal contacts

Occasionally commissioned

A standing arrangement

I am not sure

Your context

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