India, May 14 -- We do not trust bridges because their engineers are intelligent. We trust them because someone wrote down exactly what the bridge must do: How much weight, in what weather, over how many years. These are measurable, testable, and auditable specifications. AI systems deployed in public life need the same treatment, not because they are likely to collapse, but because without a prior written account of what a system is supposed to do, there is no honest way to know whether it is doing it.

Consider what most people experience when they encounter government AI. A farmer in Vidarbha opens Bharat-VISTAAR and receives a pesticide recommendation, or a first-generation beneficiary consults BHASHINI to understand a welfare documen...