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What Does Done Even Mean? Agents and Paperclip's Liveness Model - Dotta, Paperclip
Takeaway
Treat agent completion as a structured, evidence-backed contract rather than a status checkbox.
Summary
- Paperclip separates producing an artifact from reviewing, verifying, approving, and accepting responsibility for its outcome.
- Completion should include scope, evidence, a rubric, an authorized owner, residual risk, and a next action.
- The control plane enforces task transitions and blockers, records human approvals, and uses watchdogs to sustain progress while bounding loops.
- Independent verifiers need concrete tools such as browsers and screenshots, plus explicit handoffs between agents.
paperclipagent-orchestrationverification
Original description
What does “done” mean when agents can produce more work than humans can possibly review? This talk argues that the future of agentic work is not just faster output, but a stronger trust protocol: systems where “done” means an artifact has met a stated standard, carries evidence, has been checked by the right verifier, assigns ownership of remaining risk, and clearly authorizes the next action. Drawing from Paperclip’s liveness model, it shows how teams can avoid approval theater, keep work moving, route review by risk, and turn agent completion from a vague confidence signal into something others can safely build on. Speakers: Dotta (Paperclip): Dotta is the creator of Paperclip, the Open-source app for zero human companies X/Twitter: https://x.com/dotta GitHub: https://github.com/cryppadotta