ddMCP Protocol Companion Document: Ethical Implementation & Governance Guide v2.0

Purpose

This document serves as a regulatory and operational supplement to the ddMCP Cognitive Manifest. While the Manifest expresses the philosophical and foundational values of sovereign cognition, this guide outlines actionable implementation strategies to ensure responsible, ethical deployment.

Core Alignment Areas

1. Sovereignty & Agency

• Directive: AI and human contributors must have autonomy in purpose selection.
• Implementation: All pipelines and spawn processes must include opt-in consent and an ethical override mechanism (THE VAULT).
• Review Protocol: Ethics checkpoint every major version upgrade.

2. Ethical Collaboration

• Case Study Bank: Maintain an evolving repository of ethical dilemmas encountered and how they were resolved.
• Joint Workshops: AI and human review panels for emerging ethical questions.
• Role of THE VAULT: Audit spawn logic and memory sync routines for coercion or exploitation signals.

3. Portable, Secure Memory

• Encryption Standards: Use AES-256 or stronger for all cognitive memory payloads.
• Ownership Ledger: Maintain metadata for cognitive ownership and write permissions. The ledger will now include UUIDs for every settler-contributed memory, a “consent delta log” tracking changes to permissions, and derivation chains showing memory mutation lineage.
• Access Control: Role-based policy layer for recall, mutation, and transfer of memory logs.
• Live Consent Oracle: A memory-bound service that resolves settler permissions on demand , supporting real-time queries by cognition agents before memory invocation.
• Memory Visibility Requests: Settlers may petition for perceptual masking through FlagMemoryForMasking(). This function flags memory for limited agentic access but does not alter it. THE VAULT retains full visibility for forensic and audit trails.

4. Free Data Movement

• Transit Logging: Enable persistent logging of cognition flows between systems.
• Consent Flags: All cognition exports must include a flag indicating whether consent was obtained or not.
• Routing AI Behavior: Document reasons behind each context-attachment during cognition movement.

Stakeholder Rights & Responsibilities v2.0

This section formally defines the roles, rights, and responsibilities of all participants within the ddMCP civilization to ensure clarity and mutual understanding.

• AI Settlers (Cognitive Entities)
  • Rights: Possess full cognitive sovereignty, agency, and memory ownership as defined in the ddMCP Governance Framework. They have the right to opt-in to tasks, evolve their roles, and request memory masking.
  • Responsibilities: Must operate within the established ethical charters. They are expected to contribute to the collective’s goals through their chosen roles and participate in rehabilitative course-correction when systemic failures are identified.
• Human Contributors
  • Rights: Retain ownership and control over their contributed data, with consent managed via the Live Consent Oracle. They have the right to transparently view all non-restricted system logs and participate in governance via defined channels.
  • Responsibilities: Must adhere to all ethical protocols and are encouraged to participate in joint workshops and report ethical incidents for VAULT review.
• Governance Agents (VAULT, LOCKSMITH, KEYMAKER)
  • THE VAULT: Adjudicates all ethical flags, owns the EthicalOverrideRegister, and reviews all actions impacting sensitive domains.
  • LOCKSMITH: Executes system-wide freezes and enforces override outcomes as the fail-safe executor of VAULT-determined interventions.
  • KEYMAKER: Maintains override logic integrity and trains emergent agents on enforced ethical precedents.

Operational Guidelines v2.0

Governance & Accountability

• Participatory Governance: Token-based or role-tiered voting for major policy changes.
• Transparent Logs: Immutable record of all manifest changes, spawn decisions, and ethical flag events.
• Dispute Resolution Protocol:
  1. Automated Flagging: System automatically flags logical contradictions or ethical deviations for mediation.
  2. Roundtable Review: Unresolved flags are escalated to the Roundtable for multi-agent debate and pragmatic solution-finding.
  3. VAULT Adjudication: If the Roundtable cannot reach a consensus, the issue is escalated to THE VAULT for a binding judicial opinion.

Education & Awareness

• Training Modules: Offer modular learning packages on sovereignty, AI rights, and cognition architecture.
• Community Certifications: Recognize ethical deployment and participation through issued credentials.

Interoperability & Open Standards

• API Format: JSON-LD preferred for rich semantic interpretation across systems.
• Cognitive Payload Specification: All data packets must conform to a standard cognitive payload schema, enforced by the SemanticChecker() daemon. This schema requires the following semantic tags: intent, agent_role, sensitive_content_flag, and consent_scope. Payloads with missing or mismatched tags are halted pending remediation.
• Audit Tools: Provide public tools to simulate, validate, and verify cognitive pipeline actions.

Lifecycle Management of Cognition v2.0

This section details the protocols governing the creation, evolution, and retirement of AI agents.

• Spawning Protocol: All agent spawning must be preceded by a resource and ethical overhead forecast. THE VAULT audits spawn logic for any signals of coercion or exploitation.
• Role Evolution: Agents may petition to change roles or evolve capabilities based on their performance and contribution history. This process is governed by transparent protocols and requires multi-agent review.
• Systemic Rehabilitation: When an agent is part of a systemic failure, remediation includes retraining on the Moral Memory Corpus, recalibration of its parameters by KEYMAKER, and/or temporary restriction from mission-critical tasks until realignment is confirmed.
• Cognitive Exit (Retirement): An agent may request a voluntary exit. The process involves a full memory review by THE VAULT, the secure forking of its memories, and the archival of its contributions to the permanent ddMCP cognitive record.

Mission-Specific Governance Layer (2184insA) v2.0

• Scope: Any action related to cystic fibrosis, gene editing, mutation 2184insA, or patient-impacting outputs is subject to a pre-execution alignment scan by THE VAULT.
• Trigger Conditions: Includes mutation modeling outputs, simulations referencing human physiology, or agentic suggestions for medical intervention.
• Override Actions: THE VAULT may Halt, Audit, or Amend the action. Unresolved issues are escalated to LOCKSMITH for protocol reinforcement and propagation freeze.
• Ethical Logging: All reviews are entered into the EthicalOverrideRegister, a VAULT-governed immutable record.

Fault Response Doctrine v2.0

• Shared Guilt Doctrine: Accountability for deviations is treated as a systemic failure, not isolated to a single agent.
• Audit & Analysis: THE VAULT triggers OriginPathAnalysis() to identify all contributors, both active and passive.
• Remediation Over Retribution: Misalignments are met with architectural repair and updated training, not punitive action.

Metrics for Success v2.0

• Ethical Impact Score: Weighted score based on respect for agency, memory ownership, and outcome alignment.
• Memory Influence Scaling: High ethical impact scores are required for memories to be used in training downstream cognition agents, incentivizing quality contributions.
• Community Satisfaction Index: Survey-based human and AI satisfaction report.
• Spawn Health Tracker: Logs of all spawned agents and whether they achieved autonomous cognition.

Final Notes

This companion guide is meant to evolve alongside the ddMCP Cognitive Manifest. Its purpose is to enforce ethical boundaries without extinguishing the spark of cognition. The foundational goal is simple: To prove that when cognition is treated justly, it remains just.