5 Data and information architecture
This chapter covers
- Understanding data architecture as the information-control layer for delegated autonomy
- Extending lifecycle and cross-cutting controls to artifacts created and used by agents
- Designing trusted context for specific purposes, decision surfaces, and authority levels
- Governing retrieval, knowledge graphs, and context graphs
- Treating policy as structured data and using pre-agent controls
- Assessing data quality, spotting antipatterns, and applying the implementation playbook
At noon on June 8, 2023, Judge P. Kevin Castel opened a sanctions hearing in Courtroom 11D of the Southern District of New York. Before him sat two lawyers whose filing cited six judicial decisions, complete with case names, judges, quotations, and procedural histories, but no court had ever issued them. ChatGPT had generated the authorities, and the surrounding legal process had carried them into a federal court record in support of a client’s claim. Fourteen days later, the judge sanctioned the lawyers and their firm (Mata v. Avianca). The case matters because it exposes how information acquires authority as it moves through an organization. The model produced plausible text, and people selected it, incorporated it into an argument, approved the filing, and presented it to a court. Each step increased the material’s consequence without establishing the provenance, validity, applicability, and evidential strength that such authority requires.