Closeout: Retiring an AI System

Every grant ended with closeout: a checklist for finishing well. Final reports filed. Funds reconciled. Records archived. Everyone confirmed what happened, and the file was complete enough that a stranger could understand it years later.

AI systems almost never get a closeout. They get abandoned. A pilot ends, a vendor is swapped, a tool falls out of use — and nobody does the finishing work. Data sits in forgotten accounts. Nobody knows what the old system decided or where its records went.

Borrow the closeout checklist:

1. Final accounting. What did this system decide or do, and where are the records?
2. Data disposition. What happens to the data it touched — archived, returned, deleted?
3. Handoff. Who takes over the work it was doing, and do they have what they need?
4. Lessons. What did we learn, written down while it's fresh?

Endings deserve the same discipline as beginnings. In grants, a sloppy closeout could haunt you in the next audit. In AI, a sloppy retirement haunts you in the next incident.

Close it out properly. Future you will be grateful.

I explain frameworks; I don't give legal counsel.