Who Oversees the Systems That Oversee Us?

Abstract

Paper 1 of 2 in the AI Governance & Accountability Dossier. As AI shapes decisions about benefits, work, housing, credit, education and information, this paper asks who can inspect a system, challenge its use, and require a remedy. It reviews the 2025-26 U.S. governance landscape, including the GAO requirement count, OMB M-25-21 and M-25-22, Executive Order 14365 and state activity, and separates rules from remedies. It proposes a six-question diagnostic (authority, responsibility, evidence, visibility, challenge, remedy), a Minimum Accountability Package that works without a new office, and a comparison of three institutional models, including an elected state-level commissioner with independent technical staff. It treats the human-factors evidence as narrow, states what would change its conclusions, and labels every material claim in a ledger as documented, reported, interpretation or hypothesis. Not peer reviewed. Not legal advice. Research cut-off October 14, 2026.