The Harness deals with a fundamental widespread modern human problem: how to mesh the particularities of a complex Situation against the requirements of a complex set of Rules. In short, Situation v Rules.
A disciplined approach is needed. First, finding which Rules apply. Next, tracing the relevant cross-references. Next, reasoning about materiality. Next, identifying information gaps.
Traditional IT, with its use of keyword searches and regex techniques, are inadequate for a problem of this complexity. Human intelligence finds it slow, laborious, cognitively taxing and error-prone. In contrast, AI can process huge amounts of information quickly, semantically match, and reason. A solution to the Situation v Rules problem is arguably only possible with AI.
Experience with both human and AI interactions shows that no matter how sharp the intelligence, imprecise Situation definition has deleterious effects on results. The Rules side is precise, the Situation side is not. The user's AI can help here: using contextual documents and reasoning to craft a sound Situation definition.
Crafting an absolutely sound Situation definition in advance is however impossible, on pure theoretical grounds. Necessary first is knowing what information the Rules need. This means that the most intelligent initial angle of attack is: here is a Situation, identify relevant Rules and tell me what additional information they require. And the most unintelligent initial answer is: here is a provisional answer, having identified and reasoned about the relevant Rules, the following additional information is now needed.
Formulating the Situation definition and interpreting the answer is itself convoluted for humans but easy for AI: the user's AI can easily recraft the Situation definition suitably, and resubmit.
The process can be viewed as similar to consulting senior Counsel: each response contains follow-up questions. Except that the iterative loops take minutes with AI, not weeks; and the cost is comparatively microscopic.
The foundations of the Harness therefore are: rapid semantic matching of Situation v Rules; reasoning about materiality; offering suggestions for refinement of Situation definition for the next iteration.