Why I pre-register a kill-gate for every experiment
A kill-gate is a threshold written down before an experiment runs: if the result crosses it, the idea dies. The writing down happens first, because after the numbers arrive, every threshold becomes negotiable. Last week two of my gates fired and one refused to answer, which taught me more than a success would have. Key takeaways A kill-gate names, in advance, the number at which I abandon my own…
A kill-gate is a threshold set before an experiment begins; if results cross it, the hypothesis is abandoned. This pre-registration prevents biases and ensures honest reporting. In one experiment, a kill-gate for a small model detecting personal information in text required a recall of at least 0.90 for English names. When the model achieved 0.850 for names and 0.291 for surnames, the gate fired, causing the claim to be abandoned.
Another experiment used an ensemble of standard components and performed better for surnames, rising to 0.970. A third gate tested whether Cyrillic text weakened detection; it remained unpronounced because the data showed every name was Latin-script. Writing a kill-gate involves four rules: one sentence per gate, choosing the metric that highlights the most costly mistake, registering the axis you might overlook, and maintaining a dated journal to document changes.
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