CONCEPT
Professional Norms
The implicit standards embedded in professional training, mentorship, and culture rather than codified in formal regulation — the expectations of understanding, depth, and independent judgment that define competent practice in fields like law, medicine, and software engineering, and whose drift under AI pressure cannot be measured against any written specification.
Professional norms are the standards that shape what counts as competent practice in fields whose quality cannot be fully specified in regulations or checklists. That a software engineer understands the systems she deploys. That an attorney reads the cases she cites. That a physician reasons independently toward a diagnosis rather than confirming an instrument's reading. These norms are transmitted through training programs, mentorship relationships, and the observable behavior of respected practitioners. They are powerful precisely because they shape professional identity rather than merely prescribing behavior. They are also peculiarly vulnerable to AI-driven practical drift because no formal document exists against which the drift can be measured.
In The You On AI Field Guide
In the Challenger case, the original standards — zero O-ring erosion, zero tolerance for unresolved anomalies — existed as explicit engineering specifications. Vaughan could document the gap between specification and practice