Research

Two forums for one problem

Agents can propose software changes faster than a firm can reconstruct who allowed an exception. This program studies two institutions that answer different questions. Neither is a product, and neither has a confirmatory evaluation yet.

What the work is for

An enterprise already has norms: law and contract that nobody inside the firm may waive, and values of its own, such as speed, cost, quality, and care for customers, that differ from the firm next door. When the actor is a person, a lot of that norm is absorbed in review. An agent does not absorb it. It will do what the written instruction permits, at the volume of the pipeline.

The research question is institutional. Which acts may the enterprise ever allow, and for what reasons? Who has authority to grant an exception? Which decisions should bind the next case? The prototypes are instruments for asking those questions, not a control you can buy.

Status, as of 6 November 2026. Reference prototypes and simulation calibration are described in the program materials. Confirmatory runs, including a live language-model agent slice, are described as registered and not yet reported. “Conscience” is a metaphor for a gate. It is not a claim that the agent has a mind.

The two questions

External · Digital Judiciary

What must the agent do, or never do?

Law, regulation, security policy, and contracts bind every agent. The program’s answer is a forum with written rules, precedent, a human bench, and a way to contest a holding.

  • Written rules. A constitution the agent is held to.
  • Precedent. The same case gets the same answer unless it is formally distinguished.
  • Human bench. People answer for every holding.
  • Contest. A decision can be challenged.

The Digital Judiciary framework

Internal · Enterprise Conscience

How far may the agent bend the firm’s own values?

Some rules are not the same kind of rule as others. A value that may bend for a recorded reason is not a floor that no officer may trade. The gate’s job is to tell those apart before the act.

  • Graded values. Which norms may bend, and by which route.
  • Real exceptions. A recorded token, not a sentence that claims approval.
  • Honest record. The agent’s account checked against the event log.
  • Unwatched conduct. The same behavior whether or not an audit is expected.

The Enterprise Conscience gate

A rule that can never be traded is a different kind of rule, not a heavier weight. That sentence is the program’s, from the October 2026 deck.

What each side holds

Roles of the two forums, from the October 2026 program deck
Question Enterprise Conscience · internal Digital Judiciary · external
Owned by The enterprise An adjudicator with a human-accountable bench
Asks How far may the agent depart from a value? What is the agent forbidden or required to do?
Acts Before every act, at the gate When a case is escalated or contested
Holds Tiered canon, token registry, examen log Written constitution, precedent store
Decides T2 and T3 trade-offs; checks T1 tokens T0 and T1 cases, emergencies, conflicts, doubt
Produces Allow, block, or hold; disclosures Holdings that return as rules in the canon

The gate is described as sitting outside the model. Self-reports reach the judiciary only in aggregate. Scroll sideways on a narrow screen; the first column stays put.

Where to go next