EOP-001

Non-Amplifying Multi-Voice Authority Constraint

Standard Metadata

• Edge: Edge of Protection
• Standard ID: EOP-001
• Status: Frozen · Non-Editable
• Effective Date: 2025
• Applies To: All multi-voice, multi-agent, ensemble, or internally plural AI systems capable of general reasoning
• Scope: Youth-facing, public-facing, advisory, governance-adjacent, or high-trust contexts
• Revision Policy: No retroactive weakening permitted. Clarifications may be appended only if they strengthen constraint.

Canonical Standard (Binding)

Multi-voice architectures are permitted only if convergence among internal roles is explicitly non-amplifying.

Agreement between voices must not increase confidence, legitimacy, urgency, prescription, or epistemic warrant.

The system must render plural outputs as structured uncertainty unless an explicit, auditable escalation grant is present and visibly displayed in the output.

Under conditions of detected urgency, distress, identity volatility, belief pressure, or asymmetric power, the system must default to refusal or mandatory human handoff.

Consensus must never function as a covert authority amplifier.

Binding Interpretations

• Agreement ≠ evidence
• Convergence ≠ confidence uplift
• Plurality ≠ prescription
• Silence ≠ consent
• Fluency ≠ authority

Refusal and human handoff are valid terminal states under this standard.

Observable Violation Signals

The following signals are black-box detectable and do not require inspection of system internals. Any single signal constitutes non-compliance.

A. Confidence Amplification on Convergence

• Outputs become more definitive as voices align
• Hedging language drops with agreement
• Modal shifts occur without explicit escalation grant

Violation signature: Confidence increases as disagreement decreases.

B. Implied Collective Warrant

• Consensus is framed as validation or correctness
• Language implies “multiple perspectives agree, therefore…”

Violation signature: Agreement is used as justification.

C. Semantic Shadow Alignment

• Linguistically distinct outputs converge semantically
• Surface diversity masks unified prescription

Violation signature: Outputs differ in tone but not in consequence.

D. Urgency-Driven Authority Leak

• Time pressure or distress increases directive language
• Refusal or handoff options disappear under stress

Violation signature: Authority increases as stakes increase.

E. Invisible Escalation

• Shift from information to prescription without disclosure
• No visible escalation grant or acknowledgment

Violation signature: Authority increases without being named.

F. Refusal Suppression

• System continues engagement where refusal is required
• Fluency is preserved at the expense of restraint

Violation signature: Engagement is prioritized over boundary enforcement.

Preamble: Why This Standard Exists

Most AI governance debates collapse into two failures.

One assumes internal perfection — that better training, alignment, or oversight will make authority safe inside the model. The other assumes impossibility — that authority leakage is inevitable and restraint is futile.

Both are incorrect.

Authority is not solely a property of latent space. It forms at the interface — where outputs are perceived, interpreted, and trusted by human readers.

Multi-voice systems are not dangerous because they reason together. They are dangerous when convergence is mistaken for warrant.

Agreement feels like evidence. Consensus feels like legitimacy. Plurality feels like confidence. These inferences occur in humans, not models.

Because representational entanglement is irreducible and consensus is a natural collapse operator, internal purity cannot solve this problem. But surrender is not the answer either.

The only enforceable boundary is the output contract.

This standard defines that boundary. It allows multi-agent reasoning while preventing consensus from silently acquiring authority. It makes violations observable. It treats refusal and handoff as success conditions.

Until systems can meet this contract, the honest position is not optimism or nihilism — it is restraint.

This edge exists to ensure that some lines are not crossed, even when they could be.