Fact, Evaluation, and Policy may structure information and rules in machine-readable form, but another type of information is necessary to trace governance in practice: what the AI or system actually did. In I2EA, the record of these operations is treated as “Process.”

Whereas Fact, Evaluation, and Policy describe the attributes of information, assessments of its meaning, and the applicable rules, respectively, Process is a record generated from the operations and actions actually performed within an AI system or other system. For example, when an AI system generates an Evaluation for an image, Process records not only the resulting Evaluation but also which system performed the operation, what information it received as input, when the operation occurred, what processing was performed, how the operation concluded, and what result it generated.

In the example shown, a Process ID identifies the operation itself, Action records “evaluate,” Actor identifies the “AI-System,” and Input records the ID of the information being processed. Timestamp, Status, and Result further enable the operation to be traced in machine-readable form.

Importantly, Process does not represent what the AI or system was expected or designed to do. Whereas Policy defines “what should be done,” Process records “what was actually done.” Separating the two makes it possible to compare the applicable rules with the processing that actually occurred.

For example, even if a Policy requires an additional Evaluation for information satisfying particular conditions, whether that Evaluation was actually performed is a separate question. If Process is recorded, it becomes possible to determine whether the required operation was executed, failed during execution, or was replaced by another operation.

A single processing result may also become the Input for a subsequent operation, creating a sequence of Processes involving multiple AI systems, other systems, and humans. Recording Actor, Input, Timestamp, Status, Result, and related information for each Process makes it possible to reconstruct the sequence of operations that actually occurred.

Process Tags are generated from these actual operations and retained through Umecohming as machine-readable records.

Accordingly, Process is a machine-readable record of operations actually performed within an AI system or other system, together with the actor, input, time, status, and result associated with those operations.

Policy indicates what should have been done, while Process records what was actually done. By retaining both, I2EA can trace not only the existence of rules, but also how those rules were reflected in actual system operations.