Evidence gap

A point in a design defense where the engineer does not yet have sufficiently strong evidence to support a claim at the confidence level the decision requires. The mature response to an evidence gap is to state it plainly and propose a specific plan to close it, rather than substituting confidence for missing evidence.

The collective term for the structural obstacles that make proving AI-caused harm harder than proving a standard product defect: black-box opacity, version drift, multi-party supply chain opacity, the counterfactual problem, and information asymmetry.

A finding where the underlying decision in the dossier is probably correct but unsupported by a citation, quote, or derivation sentence, requiring the missing support to be added rather than the decision changed.

A finding indicating a design claim was not adequately proven in the review package, regardless of whether the underlying claim is actually true. Closed by producing the missing test, data, or citation, not by changing the design.