R0043/2026-03-28/Q001/SRC07/E01¶
DoD calibrated trust vocabulary and CaTE measurement framework
URL: https://www.sei.cmu.edu/news/ai-trust-and-autonomy-labs-fill-the-gap-between-ai-breakthroughs-and-dod-deployment/
Extract¶
DoD's trust vocabulary: - Calibrated trust: "A process by which human interactions with machine-automation or machine intelligence strive to achieve an ideal state in which the human places an appropriate amount of trust in machine intelligence based on its strengths and weaknesses" - Overtrust: "Trust that exceeds the capabilities of the system" - Distrust: "The operator trusts the system less than its capabilities might dictate" - Appropriate trust: The target state where trust matches system capability
Institutional investment: CaTE (Center for Calibrated Trust Measurement and Evaluation) is a multiyear DoD-funded program developing "standards, methods and processes for providing evidence for assurance and developing measures to determine calibrated levels of trust."
DoD's five Responsible AI Tenets: Responsible, Equitable, Traceable, Reliable, Governable. The tenet "Governable" requires "mechanisms for appropriate human intervention and control."
JUDGMENT: DoD's vocabulary is the most sophisticated of any regulated industry. "Calibrated trust" is a bidirectional concept (addressing both overtrust and distrust) that partially bridges human-side and system-side framing. However, even DoD's vocabulary focuses on the human's trust calibration, not on the system's behavior of adapting output to please the operator.
Relevance to Hypotheses¶
| Hypothesis | Relationship | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| H1 | Supports | DoD has the richest domain-specific vocabulary of any regulated industry |
| H2 | Contradicts | DoD has invested in an entire center dedicated to this terminology |
| H3 | Partially supports, partially contradicts | DoD's vocabulary is the most sophisticated (supporting richness) but still predominantly human-side (supporting the asymmetry thesis) |
Context¶
The existence of CaTE as a dedicated measurement center suggests the DoD takes the vocabulary seriously enough to institutionalize it. No other regulated industry has made a comparable investment in terminology and measurement.