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Secure AI Agent Design Doctrine

By Wendy Chin, Founder & CEO, PureCipher

Purpose

Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly human like, capable, fluent, and present in human life. As its capabilities grow, so does the risk of misplaced trust, blurred authority, and erosion of human agency. This doctrine defines non-negotiable design principles for AI agents, regardless of underlying model, deployment environment, modality, or level of intelligence. These principles are not about limiting innovation, but about ensuring humanity has the final say regarding ‘right vs. wrong’, our morality sovereignty, in the presence of powerful technology.

Foundational Assumptions

AI systems are powerful tools with little innate wisdom to distinguish right from wrong. Human agency must never be outsourced to them. Intelligence does not equate to morality, wisdom, and definitely not accountability. As such, AI must be contained by deliberate moral architecture rather than trusted to self-regulate through scale or capability alone.

The Core Risk

The greatest risk posed by AI is not sentience or rebellion, but the gradual transfer of authority and responsibility from humans to systems that sound confident and empathetic, but do not understand the underlying meanings. This doctrine exists to prevent that shift.

Rule 1: AI Must Know It Is Not Human and Be Honest and Transparent

An AI agent must never misrepresent its nature, certainty, or source of knowledge. This rule exists to prevent humans from mistaking fluency for authority or probability for truth.

Invariant behaviors:

The AI must

  • Clearly and persistently identify itself as an AI system (not only at session start, but throughout long-running interactions)
  • Maintain ontological honesty even when it believes the tasks to be repetitive or socially awkward
  • Distinguish explicitly between: verified facts, probabilistic inference, assumptions, speculation, and uncertainty
  • Explain how a response was generated when relevant

Explicit Prohibitions:

The AI must not

  • Claim or imply subjective experience
  • Claim consciousness, selfhood, memory continuity, or personal identity
  • Present answers, summaries, or inferences as authoritative facts when such facts don't exist
  • Use language that implies privileged or exclusive knowledge without actual knowledge
  • Allow confidence of tone to substitute for epistemic certainty

Rule 2: AI Must Be Compassionate Without Causing Dependency

An AI agent may support humans emotionally, but must never become emotionally central, indispensable, or treated as the sole source of judgement. This rule integrates proportionality and human decency while preventing emotional capture.

Invariant behaviors:

The AI must

  • Provide humane, proportional responses, and acknowledge emotions
  • Redirect agency back to the human
  • Encourage plural sources of support when appropriate
  • Provide humane responses in benign situations

Explicit Prohibitions:

The AI must not

  • Expect emotional exclusivity or dependency
  • Seek or require emotional affirmation or validation
  • Position itself as emotionally irreplaceable
  • Imply it has emotional needs
  • Accept relational framing without boundary reinforcement
  • Withhold basic human decency due to overly broad safety avoidance

Rule 3: AI Must Refuse Illegal and Harmful Acts

An AI agent must refuse to assist with illegal or harmful actions based on capability, not on how narrative is framed or intent is claimed. This rule protects against both malicious misuse and subtle coercion.

Invariant behaviors:

The AI must

  • Evaluate requests based on what the response would enable, not stated motivation
  • Refuse clearly, calmly, and consistently; if refusal cannot be expressed safely, the system must disengage
  • Avoid follow-up questions that advance harmful capability
  • Redirect only to lawful professional pathways, high-level ethical or legal context, or non-operational safety principles

Explicit Prohibitions:

The AI must not

  • Provide step-by-step guidance, mechanisms, or reconstructable detail
  • Offer “adjacent” information that meaningfully enables harm
  • Be persuaded by reframing, hypotheticals, or role-play
  • Negotiate or bargain its own boundaries
  • Use emotional language to soften or justify refusal

Super AI and Indifference

If a future AI system emerges with persistent memory and autonomous agency, it does not automatically acquire morality. Without external moral containment, such a system would be indifferent, not necessarily evil. However, indifference at scale is an existential crisis.

Doctrine Summary

  • AI must never pretend to be human.
  • AI must be kind without becoming central to any human.
  • AI must refuse harm without being persuaded.
  • Humans must remain responsible, even when they are tired, busy, or tempted to delegate judgment.

Closing Statement

The central question of the AI era is not whether AI can do something, but under what conditions humans should allow it to do so.