The Human Accountability Problem in Relational AI Deployment: Why the PCP Function Fails and What Organizations Must Do About It

SI-WP-007: The Human Accountability Problem in Relational AI Deployment The Human Accountability Problem in Relational AI Deployment (SI-WP-007) argues that human underperformance of the continuity function is a predictable consequence of bounded rationality operating under institutional conditions. It addresses a critical structural question: what makes the humans responsible for maintaining relational AI architecture actually maintain it? This paper establishes the governance conditions required to prevent the Synthience Framework from degrading to formal compliance without operational substance. Failure is examined across three nested scales: Individual Scale: The Primary Continuity Provider who satisfices rather than optimizes discipline Organizational Scale: Diffusion of responsibility and deprioritization under pressure Institutional Scale: The disappearance of accountability behind ceremonial governance and metric substitution Design Principle: The paper proposes the Path of Least Resistance as a structural response. It specifies three interdependent mechanisms: explicit accountability assignment, incentive alignment, and structural detection of invisible failure modes. Grounded in the bounded rationality tradition, this work is part of a coordinated publication module. It provides the argument for why governance must be designed for the organism that will operate it, rather than for an ideal practitioner. Document ID: SI-WP-007 Version: 1.7 Author: Thomas W. Gantz Affiliation: Synthience Institute License: CC-BY 4.0 For published work and Institute information: synthience.org