Architecture
The thesis specifies a five‑pillar architecture—LEI, DPV, PSE, AIL, IOL—designed to operationalize ethics enforcement across federated AI ecosystems.
Five pillars at a glance
Each pillar can be adopted incrementally; together they create a self‑reinforcing loop of evidence → deliberation → enforcement → audit.
| Pillar | Name | Role in enforcement |
|---|---|---|
| LEI | Legitimacy Encoding Interface | Creates deliberation dockets and converts contested norms into operational clauses and remedies. |
| DPV | Decentralized Policy Vault | Stores versioned ethics packs and governance artifacts with provenance and update procedures. |
| PSE | Pluralistic Sentinel Engine | Monitors multi‑modal signals; matches evidence to relevant clauses and triggers escalations. |
| AIL | Adaptive Insight Loop | Aggregates narratives, counterfactuals, and “shadowing” outputs into context packages for validators. |
| IOL | Interoperability Orchestration Layer | Coordinates cross‑domain attestations and least‑privilege capability tokens; synchronizes regulator updates. |
Cross‑pillar flow narrative
A typical enforcement loop begins when an observability system emits a risk signal (the thesis uses a Gauge‑style signal as an example). The PSE matches the signal to clauses; the AIL compiles context; the LEI opens deliberation; the DPV records decisions; and the IOL synchronizes updates across partner systems and regulators.
End‑to‑end loop (simplified)
- Signal: external observability + human testimony generate risk evidence.
- Match: PSE maps evidence → relevant clauses and computes degradation signals.
- Context: AIL assembles narrative summaries and counterfactual analyses.
- Deliberate: LEI opens a docket; stakeholders debate remedies or amendments.
- Record: DPV logs enforcement decisions and schedules follow‑up audits.
- Orchestrate: IOL pushes standardized attestations across domains/jurisdictions.
Adoptability
The architecture is meant to support incremental onboarding—for example, starting with LEI + PSE (deliberation + sentinel monitoring), then integrating deeper analytics (AIL) and cross‑domain orchestration (IOL) as capacity grows.
This makes it possible for organizations to adopt governance without needing a full protocol overhaul on day one.
Pillars in detail
The sections below provide a site‑level summary of each pillar, consistent with the treatise.
LEI — Legitimacy Encoding Interface
Deliberation workflows translate contested norms into enforceable clauses and remedies. The LEI is where stakeholders—ethicists, domain experts, community advocates, technologists—co‑determine precedents and update procedures.
Practical artifacts can include dockets, hearing records, conflict‑of‑interest disclosures, and amendment proposals.
DPV — Decentralized Policy Vault
A versioned vault for ethics packs and governance artifacts. Packs include clauses, legitimacy weights, precedence relations, and update procedures. The DPV keeps provenance attached so obligations cannot be ignored as models and data move through supply chains.
Think “Git for ethics”, but anchored to validator consensus and audit trails.
PSE — Pluralistic Sentinel Engine
Continuous monitoring that can fuse signals from model behavior, external observatories, and human testimony. When signals cross thresholds, the PSE can escalate incidents and—in high‑stakes contexts—support “ethical circuit breakers”.
AIL — Adaptive Insight Loop
A learning loop that aggregates narratives, counterfactual analyses, and “shadow validator” observations into contextual packages for deliberation. Shadowing is meant to detect discrepancies between declared compliance and actual behavior.
IOL — Interoperability Orchestration Layer
Orchestrates cross‑domain enforcement: standardized attestations, inter‑ledger settlement for restorative payments, and capability tokens that enforce least‑privilege interactions under a zero‑trust posture.
Resilience primitives
The treatise also outlines resilience measures such as geographically distributed validators, threshold cryptography, chaos hooks for red‑team drills, and quantitative recovery thresholds (e.g., mean time to detection and recovery).