A term is owned by the chapter that first defines it, and a later chapter may use it freely but may not redefine it. These definitions are the ones the continuity ledger records, which is the same record the continuity gate checks every chapter against.

Access price Chapter 1

The stated amount an organization pays for the right to use an AI capability, usually per seat or subscription. It does not include additional costs based on how much AI the organization actually uses.

AI Business Economics Chapter 3

The science of the business economics of consuming AI: an ordered body of conditional claims, each stating when it applies, what it concludes, and which other claims it depends on.

AI Operations Management Chapter 3

The management discipline that acts on AI Business Economics: the practice by which an organization buys, plans, records, assigns, allocates, and holds accountable its consumption of AI.

Category error Chapter 1

The error of managing a metered resource as if it were licensed software. It rests on a false assumption: that the access price fixes the total cost. The tool is the right one and the vendor is not at fault. The economic model applied to the tool is wrong.

Certified claim Chapter 3

A registry claim that meets the validator’s fixed conditions and whose dependencies are all certified. The book renders and cites only certified claims.

Condition Chapter 3

A requirement a deployment must meet for a formal claim to apply to it. A claim says nothing about a case that fails any of its conditions.

Consumption event Chapter 1

A single use of an AI system that consumes metered computing resources and creates an underlying cost greater than zero, whether or not the buyer is charged for it separately. A consumption event may be measured in tokens, requests, credits, compute time, or another equivalent unit. It is the basic unit of consumption tracked in AI Operations Management.

Cost-and-value flow Chapter 2

The stream of money spent on a deployment together with the business return attributed to that spending. The two halves form one flow because neither can support an economic decision on its own.

Cost-value asymmetry Chapter 2

The condition in which metering records a deployment’s cost automatically, while its value is measured only when the organization has deliberately built a way to measure it. As a result, the organization may know precisely what the deployment costs without knowing what that spending produces.

Dependency Chapter 3

A claim that another claim rests on. A required dependency is one without which the claim cannot hold. A contextual dependency bears on the claim without being one of its conditions.

Falsifying case Chapter 3

A case that meets every condition of a formal claim but lacks its conclusion. Finding such a case would show the claim to be wrong.

Flat-rate objection Chapter 1

The claim that a flat per-seat price makes AI equivalent to licensed software; answered by meter relocation.

Flow Chapter 2

A continuous stream of related activity within a deployment, described by its rate, direction, and the records kept about it. An organization manages a flow by governing it over time rather than approving the deployment once.

Founding Questions Chapter 3

The five questions AI Operations Management exists to answer from an organization’s own records, one for each of its five functions.

Lemma Chapter 3

An intermediate registry result that combines propositions, and sometimes other lemmas, to support one or more theorems.

Meter relocation Chapter 1

The placement of consumption metering on the provider’s side of a flat-rate subscription. The buyer pays a fixed price for access, while the provider continues to measure actual use. The provider sets the flat rate based on expected consumption and may change the price, allowance, or usage limits when actual consumption exceeds that expectation.

Metered resource Chapter 1

A resource whose consumption is measured per unit of use, here in tokens or their equivalents.

Non-claim Chapter 3

A conclusion a formal claim deliberately does not establish, though a reader might be tempted to draw it. Stating non-claims prevents a claim from being cited for more than it says.

Proposition Chapter 3

A single registry claim, accepted because of the definitions, axioms, or earlier claims it names as its support. Lemmas combine propositions.

Record flow Chapter 2

The stream of information an organization keeps about its own usage, including which team or product consumed what, at what volume, and when. The provider always keeps a record because it must produce a bill. The buyer has a record only if it deliberately builds one.

Registry Chapter 3

The structured record of every definition, assumption, and result in AI Business Economics, with each result linked to the claims that support it.

Resource consumption model Chapter 1

The economic model in which deployed AI is consumed as a metered resource. Each use creates a consumption event, and cost accrues with each event. It contrasts with the software access model.

Scope Chapter 3

The part of a formal claim that defines which cases it covers, such as one deployment within one boundary. A case outside that scope is not covered, regardless of whether it meets the conditions.

Software access model Chapter 1

A purchasing model in which an organization pays a fixed price for access to software, usually per seat or subscription. Because additional use creates little or no additional cost, the organization manages who has access rather than how much of the software each user consumes.

Theorem Chapter 3

A registry result that combines lemmas into a conclusion with direct consequences for management. The book presents each theorem it relies on in a numbered panel.

Three-flow mapping Chapter 2

The diagnostic that establishes the condition of the usage, record, and cost-and-value flows in a named deployment. The mapping also identifies the evidence that would change each diagnosis.

Trace Chapter 3

The process of following a registry claim through its supporting claims, from a theorem to its lemmas and from a lemma to its propositions.

Trace procedure Chapter 3

The six-step method for examining a formal claim before relying on it: locate the claim; state its scope and restate its conditions; list its dependencies; follow them one level down; separate what the claim establishes from what it does not; and name the case that would defeat it.

Usage flow Chapter 2

The stream of consumption events a deployment generates, including requests made, work performed, and outputs returned. It is the only one of the three flows that an organization normally seeks to increase.

Value boundary Chapter 3

The boundary within which an organization judges whether a deployment pays for itself, defined by the costs and value it counts, the period it covers, and the outcomes it measures against. LEM-021 requires such a boundary whenever return on AI is evaluated. Setting one for each deployment before spending begins is this book’s practice.