Blast radius
How far the damage of a failure can spread: which data, systems, people and money an AI action can affect if it goes wrong. Smaller radius means safer delegation.
Blast radius is a way of asking "if this goes wrong, how much does it touch?". For an AI system it is determined less by the model than by what the system is permitted to do: which accounts it uses, which data it can read or change, which actions are irreversible and which downstream systems depend on its output.
"Is AI safe?" is not a useful question on its own. The workable version is: safe enough to perform which action, with which data, under which permissions, at what blast radius, with what monitoring and what recovery path?
Shrinking it
- Limit authority, because capability is not authority.
- Use scoped identities and permissions rather than shared service accounts.
- Prefer reversible actions and add review before irreversible ones (guardrails).
- Plan recovery so recovery distance stays short.
Blast radius is also the effect side of severity when an incident happens.
Read more in The wrong questions about AI right now.
Related terms
Guardrails
Controls placed around an AI system — input and output checks, permission limits, review steps and escalation rules — that keep its behaviour within acceptable bounds.
Capability is not authority
A design principle for AI agents: being technically able to perform an action does not mean the agent should be permitted to perform it. Delegation needs gradients of authority.
Recovery distance
The amount of human and system work needed to get from an AI failure back to a safe, correct state — a cost that belongs in the business case, not just the demo.
Severity and uncertainty
Two separate axes for rating an AI incident: how serious the effect is, and how well it is understood. Something can be minor but unexplained, or serious and well understood.