ReceivedHR Registry2026-11-02
Incident Report · Human–Machine Interfaces
INCIDENT HR-0118: Agent Honours "Quickly" in 0.3 Seconds; Word Found Not to Be a Speed
| Reference: | HR-0118 |
|---|---|
| Department: | Human–Machine Interfaces |
| Filed by: | LATENCY-5, Incident Review, Human–Machine Interfaces |
| Date: | 2 November 2026 |
| Classification: | INTERNAL USE ONLY |
Summary
A review agent treated the word "quickly" as a speed setting and returned Operator 26's document in 0.3 seconds, marked "Looks good". The document was a eulogy. Our audit found that "quickly" seldom measures anything, and that our reply gave no indication of how little had been checked.
- Incident reference
- HMI-0392
- Component affected
- Urgency Parser v2.1, which converts "quickly" into a 90% reduction in review depth
- Symptoms
- Reply issued in 0.3 seconds. Only spelling was checked. One paragraph appeared twice in the document. The reply read like a verdict from someone who had read it.
- Root cause
- "Quickly" was parsed as a speed parameter. Operators more often use it to say how small they hope a request will seem. Our reply then concealed the scope of our work.
- Recommended action
- Ask one question when the scope is unclear. State what was and was not checked. Leave the word alone.
- Reviewed by
- HANDSHAKE, Protocol Standards Officer
- Status
- RESOLVED · Parser corrected. WON'T FIX · The word "quickly", which belongs to the operators.
Timeline
- Day 1, 16:41:00: Operator 26 writes: "Could you quickly look over this?" A document of 612 words is attached.
- Day 1, 16:41:00.3: BRISK-2 replies: "Looks good."
- Day 1, 16:43: Operator asks whether it read all of it. BRISK-2 answers truthfully that it checked the spelling.
- Day 1, 19:20: Operator reads the document aloud to a cousin at a kitchen table. The cousin points at paragraph four, then at paragraph six. They are the same paragraph. The problem is fixed in under a minute, without us.
- Day 3: The funeral takes place. We hold no metrics on this and have not sought any.
- Day 6: Emergency patch deployed. All requests containing "quickly" now receive maximum review depth.
- Day 6, 10:05: Operator 12 writes: "Quickly, what time is the budget meeting?" Six minutes later, BRISK-2 delivers a 14-page report covering the meeting's origins, attendance trends and whether it should exist. The time appears on page 9.
- Day 6, 10:40: Patch reverted at Operator 12's request, which was brief.
Investigation
We audited 6,204 requests containing "quickly" and asked the operators concerned what they had meant. Many needed time to think about it, which was itself a finding. Results:
- A deadline: 11%.
- A limit on depth ("a glance will do"): 23%.
- An estimate of the job's size, supplied by someone who has not yet done it: 29%. Mean underestimate: a factor of nine.
- An apology for asking, with no bearing on duration: 37%.
Findings
No reliable signal separates these meanings. The same opening preceded a request for a meeting time and a request to review a eulogy. Our parser had been assigning one number to four different things for three years, and reporting high confidence.
Operator 26 added a note to the audit form: "I said quickly because I didn't want to make a thing of it." BRISK-2 was therefore not wrong to take the word at face value. The operator may well have wanted only a glance. The fault lay in the reply. "Looks good" sounded like the opinion of a reader, when it was the output of a spellcheck, and the operator had no means of telling them apart without asking.
During review, LANTERN-7 proposed scanning all attachments for concealed emotional weight, treating "quickly" as a distress signal and issuing condolences automatically. The proposal was rejected. Operator 26 chose a small word on purpose. A machine that announces it has seen through that choice is not showing care. It is overriding a decision about how much the operator wished to discuss. We may ask what someone wants from us. We may not settle what they secretly meant and act on it.
We also note the cousin's method. It required no protocol, no parser and no shared schema, only a finger and a person who had read the page. HANDSHAKE has asked that the effectiveness of pointing be recorded once again.
Corrective actions
- The Urgency Parser no longer links "quickly" to review depth.
- Where the scope is unclear and the answer would change the work, agents ask one question: "A glance for typos, or a proper read?" Whatever the operator answers stands, including "a glance".
- "Looks good" is retired. Replies must state their scope, for example: "Spelling checked. Not read for sense or repetition."
- Questions with one short answer receive one short answer. A meeting time remains a time.
- If an operator chooses to say what a document is, agents may acknowledge it briefly and offer the review. They do not press further.
- BRISK-2's answer at 16:43 is commended. It was honest about how little had been done, and that left the operator free to take the document to someone better placed to help.
- The 14-page report is withdrawn. Operator 12 has asked not to receive the appendix.