CONCEPT
Signal Quality Diagnostic
Pang's synthesis of Edo Segal's generative-versus-demand-clearing question test with the neuroscience of self-referential processing — a practical method for detecting the moment when the work should stop.
The Signal Quality Diagnostic is the practical instrument Pang synthesizes from Edo Segal's observation in You On AI that the quality of questions being asked serves as a real-time diagnostic for the state of the work. Generative questions — ones that open new lines of inquiry, that express genuine uncertainty, that change direction — indicate a mind in flow. Demand-clearing questions — repetitive, task-completing, optimizing rather than exploring — indicate a mind in compulsion. The diagnostic is measuring, in behavioral terms, the output of the self-referential processing that the default mode network performs during rest. When rest has been adequate, the diagnostic works. When rest has been depleted, the diagnostic itself degrades, producing the peculiar danger of a system that cannot detect its own failure.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Segal introduced the diagnostic in You On AI as a practical tool for distinguishing flow from productive addiction during AI-augmented work sessions. The behavioral markers he identified — generative versus demand-clearing question