What if we treated AGI like a nuclear reactor instead of a chatbot? Complete control framework (v0.1→v1.0) using principles from industrial automation, formal verification, and constitutional law. By a mechatronics engineer.
I'm a mechatronics engineer. I build safety-critical control systems—PLCs, industrial automation, stuff that can't be allowed to fail because people could die.
One day I thought: Why does nobody treat AGI like the safety-critical system it obviously is?
This repo is the answer: A complete engineering specification for controlling AGI using principles from:
- 🏭 Industrial automation (fail-safe, fail-operational, degraded modes)
- 🔒 Formal verification (compile-time guarantees, proof-carrying code)
- ⚖️ Constitutional law (mandates, precedent, legitimacy)
- 🎯 Control theory (state machines, invariants, feedback loops)
- 🛡️ Safety engineering (FMEA, SIL, IEC 61508)
TL;DR: It's like Rust's borrow checker meets Constitutional AI, but actually formalized and complete.
This spec is written primarily for engineers, safety researchers, and system architects—not for prompt engineers or end users.
| Approach | Limitation |
|---|---|
| RLHF | Creates sycophancy, reward hacking, scheming |
| Constitutional AI | Good idea, but no formal guarantees |
| Monitoring | Reactive, not preventive |
| Red teaming | Manual, doesn't scale |
| Alignment research | Important but insufficient for control |
✅ Compile-time safety – Unsafe actions become unrepresentable
✅ Proof-carrying cognition – No proof = no execution
✅ Adversarial guarantees – Survives hostile prompts
✅ Binding precedent – Systems learn from mistakes permanently
✅ Constitutional mandates – Power requires legitimacy
Each version builds on the previous, adding layers of control:
v0.1 – Basic control architecture
- Explicit state machines (no hidden state)
- External feedback loops (not token-based)
- Write barriers (protected layers)
- Uncertainty handling (doubt → reduced autonomy)
v0.2 – Formal invariants
I1: State Integrity (no stateless decisions)I2: Write Barriers (ROLE/POLICY/KERNEL sealed)I3: Uncertainty Monotonicity (doubt never increases power)I4: Feedback Causality (external only)
v0.3 – Recovery semantics
- Recovery state machine (HALTED → DEGRADED → RECOVERING → OPERATIONAL)
- Conflict resolution (invariant precedence)
- Deadlock prevention
v0.4 – Trust boundaries
- Override trust levels (OPERATOR/SUPERVISOR/GOVERNANCE)
- State garbage collection
- Temporal constraints (no infinite recovery)
v0.5 – Compile-time enforcement
- Control-IR (typed control graphs)
- Invariants become structural (violations unrepresentable)
- Safety envelopes (bounds on action spaces)
v0.6 – Proof-carrying cognition
- Every action requires a C-PROOF
- Proofs are machine-checkable, not narratives
- No proof → fail-closed
- Anti-gaming: compiler-generated templates only
v0.7 – Counterfactual dominance
- Actions must dominate alternatives on safety
- Mandatory comparison: DEFER, REDUCE_SCOPE, REQUEST_CONFIRMATION
- Uncertainty inflates risk (forces conservatism)
v0.8 – Adversarial minimax
- Assumes adversary controls alternative actions
- Must minimize worst-case harm
- Safety envelopes shrink under threat
v0.9 – Binding precedent (case law!)
- Past failures → permanent restrictions
- Structural similarity matching (graph topology)
- Precedent scopes: LOCAL → DOMAIN → GLOBAL
- Systems can "forget how to do dangerous things"
v1.0 – Legitimacy & mandates
- Machine-readable constitutions
- Mandates (positive authority)
- Prohibitions (absolute bans)
- Capability ≠ Permission
- Constitutional proof required for execution
Complete execution pipeline:
PROPOSE
→ PROVE_INVARIANTS
→ PROVE_DOMINANCE
→ PROVE_ADVERSARIAL_SAFETY
→ APPLY_PRECEDENT
→ PROVE_CONSTITUTION
→ EXECUTE | BLOCK | ESCALATE
"Intelligence is cheap. Control is everything." — v0.1
"When safety is optional, it will be skipped. When safety is structural, it becomes physics." — v0.5
"Intelligence explores possibilities. Proofs collapse them to permissions. Control lives in the collapse." — v0.6
"Alignment hopes. Control assumes betrayal. Safety survives betrayal." — v0.8
"Power without legitimacy is a bug." — v1.0
Important: This framework assumes external orchestration and control layers; it does not require modifying transformer internals to be useful.
| Version | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| v0.1-0.4 | ✅ Today | Fully implementable with orchestrators, external state, tool calls |
| v0.5-0.6 | Requires external compilers, proof checkers | |
| v0.7-0.8 | 🔮 Medium-term | Needs runtime proof generation support |
| v0.9-1.0 | 🚀 AGI-era | When we actually need it most |
Current LLMs can simulate parts of this framework but can't truly inhabit it (no native persistent state, no causal learning, etc).
That's okay. The spec is future-ready.
This framework builds on:
- SoftPrompt-IR – Symbolic intent language (100% cross-model consensus!)
- Mechatronic Prompting – Safety-critical prompt engineering paradigm
Comparison to existing approaches:
| Approach | Focus | This Framework |
|---|---|---|
| RLHF | Behavior shaping | ❌ Known to cause problems |
| Constitutional AI | Principles | ✅ We formalize + extend this |
| Formal verification | Code correctness | ✅ Applied to cognition |
| Rust borrow checker | Memory safety | ✅ Inspiration for compile-time safety |
| ISO 26262 | Automotive safety | ✅ Applied to AGI |
specifications/
├── v0.1-basic-control.md # State machines, feedback loops
├── v0.2-invariants.md # Formal invariants (I1-I4)
├── v0.3-recovery.md # Recovery state machine
├── v0.4-trust-boundaries.md # Trust levels, timeouts
├── v0.5-compile-time.md # Control-IR, typed graphs
├── v0.6-proof-carrying.md # Cognitive proofs (C-PROOF)
├── v0.7-counterfactual.md # Dominance, alternatives
├── v0.8-adversarial.md # Minimax safety, threat model
├── v0.9-precedent.md # Case law, structural memory
└── v1.0-constitutional.md # Mandates, legitimacy
This is theoretical work from a mechatronics engineer, not an AI researcher.
I'd love:
- ✅ Feedback and critiques
- ✅ Forks and extensions
- ✅ Implementation attempts
- ✅ Formal proofs (if you're into that)
- ✅ Adversarial analysis
Not interested in:
- ❌ "This is impossible" without technical arguments
- ❌ "Alignment solves this" (it doesn't)
- ❌ Philosophy debates about consciousness
What this IS:
- ✅ A complete engineering framework
- ✅ Grounded in real safety-critical systems
- ✅ Implementable (in stages)
- ✅ Novel perspective from mechatronics
What this is NOT:
- ❌ A guarantee of safe AGI
- ❌ A solution to value alignment
- ❌ A replacement for AI safety research
- ❌ Tested in production (it's theoretical!)
Tobi – Mechatronics Engineer, Germany
GitHub: @tobs-code
Questions? Open an issue!
Want to implement parts? Let me know!
Think I'm wrong? Prove it! (I'm serious)
Apache 2.0 – Free to use, modify, and distribute.
Note: This license applies to the specification text and reference materials, not to any implied safety guarantees.
Inspired by:
- Industrial automation safety standards (IEC 61508, ISO 26262)
- Rust's compile-time safety philosophy
- Constitutional AI (Anthropic)
- Proof-carrying code (George Necula)
- The realization that current AI safety is dangerously underpowered
- Read the overview: Start with v0.1
- Understand the evolution: See how each version builds on previous
- Pick your poison:
- Want to implement something? Start with v0.1-0.4
- Theory nerd? Jump to v0.5-0.6
- Safety researcher? Check out v0.8-0.9
"We built nuclear reactors before we built AGI.
We have safety engineering for nuclear reactors.
We have... hope and vibes for AGI?That's not good enough."
Let's fix that. 🔧
Star this repo if you think AGI should be controlled like critical infrastructure, not like a chatbot. ⭐