Permissions & Security

How Much Freedom Should AI Have

Give AI full permissions? It might break everything. Approve every step? Users will go crazy. Permission design is a spectrum: from fully autonomous to step-by-step approval, with three more options in between.

Spectrum of Five Permission Modes

← High AI Autonomy High Human Control →

How to Choose?

Permission mode selection depends on three dimensions:

Reversibility of the action — sending a message is irreversible; reading a file is reversible
Cost of error — deleting data is high-cost; searching for information is low-cost
User trust level — be cautious with new users, extend trust to established ones

Within the same product, different features can use different permission modes.

There is no best permission mode — only the one most appropriate for the current scenario. How much freedom to give AI is ultimately a product question: if something goes wrong, who is responsible?