Rubber-Stamping

The failure pattern in which a human reviewer, faced with a high volume of approval requests, begins approving quickly without genuine scrutiny, defeating the purpose of a human-approval checkpoint even though the checkpoint technically still exists. Its formal countermeasures (monitoring override rates and response times) belong to Topic 4.4. (see Topic 4.4)

The failure mode in which a reviewer approves access grants without genuine individual scrutiny, typically because the review's design (excessive volume, no risk signal, no consequence for a bad approval) makes careful review impractical, producing a review that satisfies a compliance checkbox without catching real problems.

The failure mode where human review of AI output becomes performative rather than substantive, reducing error detection over time.

The practical decay of a checkpoint into a formality, where an approver clicks approve without genuinely reviewing the request. Signaled by the combination of a near-zero override rate and a short response time; the specific failure this topic's audit measures exist to catch.

A reviewer's confidence decoupling from the specific evidence in front of them, so that approval becomes a formality rather than a live judgment. Can occur even in a well-rested, unhurried reviewer, driven by an accumulated track record of the system being right.