For many institutions, the responsible posture toward AI adoption still sounds like restraint: move slowly, study the risks, wait for governance frameworks to mature, and avoid deploying capabilities faster than oversight can absorb them.
"The Deferral Trap: Compounding Risk and AI Adoption Governance" scrutinizes that presumption — that this instinct is understandable, but incomplete.
The paper does not dismiss the risks of AI adoption. It starts from the opposite premise: AI systems can be opaque, difficult to govern, and dangerous when deployed in high-stakes contexts without accountability.
The paper challenges a quieter assumption embedded in much of today's AI skepticism: that waiting is safe.