ScenarioGeneral-purpose autonomy assurance

General-Purpose System Decommissioning Planner

Also called AGI Decommissioning Specialist

A General-Purpose System Decommissioning Planner would prepare the controlled withdrawal of autonomous systems that run deeply inside an organisation. The role depends on how AI develops, and it only matters if broad delegation to AI becomes real.

What they do

The planner would map what a general-purpose autonomous system touches: tasks, permissions, data, other systems and the people who rely on its output. They would write decommissioning scenarios for planned retirement, sudden withdrawal and partial rollback. They would work out which services must keep running, what manual or alternative capacity exists, and how long a handover would take. They would test those plans with the teams involved, record the gaps, and set out what evidence shows a withdrawal can be reversed. They would also agree with leaders the triggers for acting.

What a strong hire delivers

In the first months, a strong hire would produce a clear dependency map of one delegated system and a first set of decommissioning scenarios that operations teams understand. They would name the critical services, find the single points of failure, and run at least one rehearsal. Leaders would leave with an agreed view of what withdrawal would cost and what reversibility would require.

How you can tell they are good

Ask them to take a system they know and explain how they would retire it without stopping the services that depend on it. A strong candidate starts with dependencies and fallback capacity, not the model. They separate what can be reversed from what cannot, and they say how they would test it. Be wary of anyone who treats withdrawal as a switch-off.

Why it is hard to fill

If this role emerged, almost nobody would hold the title. The work sits between AI control, assurance, systems safety and operational continuity, and few people have worked across all of them. Many candidates would know the models but not retirement planning, or know retirement planning but not autonomous systems. We would expect to assess adjacent experience, not titles.

Where to find them

Today, the closest people work in AI control, model evaluation, AI governance and assurance, systems safety, and formal methods. Others come from legacy system migration, business continuity and critical infrastructure engineering. They sit in frontier labs, safety research groups, assurance consultancies, regulated industries and public bodies. Current evaluation and assurance methods are precursors, not the finished craft.

Interview questions for a General-Purpose System Decommissioning Planner

  1. Tell us about a time you planned the retirement of a system many teams depended on. What did you map first?

    A strong answer starts with dependencies, owners and critical services, then covers sequencing and fallback. It shows they met resistance and handled it. Worry if they talk only about technical shutdown and ignore the people and processes relying on it.

  2. How would you decide which services must keep running if an autonomous system were withdrawn suddenly?

    Look for a method: rank services by consequence, identify tolerance for interruption, and check real fallback capacity. Good answers admit uncertainty and involve service owners. Worry if they rely on assumptions or treat all services as equally critical.

4 more questions, with what a strong answer covers, are in the Role Kit.

Job description you can post

We are looking for someone to plan how we would withdraw autonomous systems that carry out important work for us. You would map what depends on them, write decommissioning scenarios, and show that critical services could continue and that withdrawal could be reversed. You would work with engineering, operations and leadership.

What you will do

  • Map dependencies, permissions and data flows for delegated autonomous systems
  • Write decommissioning and continuity scenarios for planned and sudden withdrawal
  • Identify critical services and the fallback capacity behind them
  • Run rehearsals and record the gaps they reveal
  • Define evidence that a withdrawal can be reversed
  • Agree triggers and decision rights with senior leaders
  • Report residual risks clearly to non-specialists

What you will bring

  • Demonstrated work planning the retirement or migration of complex, interdependent systems
  • Experience in AI control, assurance, systems safety or formal methods
  • Ability to turn technical dependencies into plain operational plans
  • Experience running tests or exercises and acting on the findings
  • Clear written communication with technical and non-technical readers
  • Sound judgement about what can and cannot be reversed

Nice to have

  • Experience with model evaluation or agent frameworks
  • Background in business continuity or critical infrastructure
  • Familiarity with AI governance and assurance practice

Free to use and adapt. If it saves you time, a link back to this page is appreciated.

Depends on a scenario

Broad reliable autonomous delegation

What AI would need to do
Systems complete diverse consequential tasks with sustained reliability beyond existing narrow deployments.
What organisations would need to decide
Organisations explicitly delegate bounded authority and establish enforceable accountability.
What would rule it out
Persistent reliability limits or lack of useful cost advantage prevents broad delegation.

We give no date. The role becomes real if both conditions hold.

Skills that matter

  • AI controlAdvancedLimit harm from potentially untrusted AI behaviour
  • AI governance and assuranceAdvancedAssign accountability and verify lifecycle controls
  • Model evaluationWorkingMeasure capability and failure modes credibly
  • Frontier scenario analysisWorkingExplore conditional outcomes without claiming predictions

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How we wrote this

Role definitions are our own editorial work, checked against occupational classifications, standards, research and employer pages. Titles vary by company, and this is a description of the work, not a job advert. Scenario roles describe responsibilities that depend on stated conditions; they are not forecasts.

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