It’s the Economics, Stupid

I think we may have finally arrived at one of the simplest arguments for SpatzAI.

Consider what happens when someone’s behaviour is questionable or unfair .

fair/unfair behaviour → fair/unfair objection → fair/unfair acknowledgement or challenge → fair/unfair team + AI review → fair/unfair HR review → fair/unfair legal review → fair/unfair High Court decision.

Notice something?

Moving up the hierarchy doesn’t guarantee fairness.

The person behaving might be wrong.

The person objecting might be wrong.

The team and AI’s decision might be wrong.

HR might be wrong.

A lawyer, judge or even a High Court can get things wrong.

What escalation gives us isn’t necessarily greater truth. It gives us another opportunity for review, usually with greater authority, formality, time and cost.

And that’s where the economics becomes interesting.

Imagine an employee believes a colleague has behaved unfairly.

At the lowest level, they can simply say:

“Caution. That’s not acceptable to me.”

The colleague can acknowledge it, apologise and correct the behaviour.

Cost? Almost nothing.

If they challenge the objection, SpatzAI can help the team review whether the behaviour and objection were fair.

Still relatively inexpensive.

But leave the issue unresolved and the next referee becomes a manager.

Then HR.

Then perhaps mediation.

Then lawyers.

Then courts.

At every step, the cost can increase dramatically.

Yet fundamentally we’re still trying to answer variations of the same question:

Was what happened fair or unfair, in context?

This suggests a simple economic principle:

Resolve the fairness question at the lowest competent level.

People will behave unfairly at times. People will sometimes object unfairly. That’s why every step needs to remain challengeable and reviewable.

But we don’t need to send every workplace spat up an increasingly expensive escalation ladder.

SpatzAI costs about $6 per user, per month.

The High Court costs a little more.

Maybe we’ve been looking at conflict resolution from the wrong end.

It’s the economics, stupid.