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AI + Quantum Ethics & Standards (Living Corpus)

This repository is a living, values-grounded standards framework spanning Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Quantum Computing (QC). It is designed to be globally applicable, technically enforceable, and continuously improvable via open review and versioned changes.

To establish globally applicable, ethically grounded, and technically enforceable standards for AI and QC that advance human dignity, justice, unity, and the responsible use of scientific power for the betterment of humanity.

Standards are organized as a stack:

  1. Ethical Axioms (Why) — the normative anchor
  2. Governance (Who/How) — decision-making and change control
  3. Technical Standards (What) — requirements per domain
  4. Operational Controls (How enforced) — procedures, monitoring, tooling
  5. Audit & Assurance (How proven) — evidence, metrics, certification

This corpus uses the normative terms MUST, SHOULD, and MAY as described in RFC 2119 (and clarified by RFC 8174). See 00_foundations/definitions.md.

  • 00_foundations/ — ethical_axioms, definitions, scope_and_non_scope, non_derogation_and_red_lines, standard_template
  • 01_governance/ — governance_model, consultation_framework, independent_ethics_review, emergency_powers_and_safeguards, supply_chain_and_provenance, environmental_and_resource_ethics, international_alignment, pathway_to_adoption
  • 02_ai_standards/ — accountability, autonomy_and_human_control, transparency_and_explainability, fairness_and_justice, privacy_and_non_inference, safety, healthcare_ai
  • 03_quantum_standards/ — cryptographic_and_security_risk, national_security, optimization_and_power_asymmetry, research_and_disclosure
  • 04_risk_framework/ — risk_classification, control_matrix, ethical_metrics, ai_quantum_convergence
  • 05_audit_and_assurance/ — audit_methods, certification, certification_and_labeling, metrics, monitoring_and_incident_response
  • 06_case_studies/ — ai_healthcare, military_use, quantum_crypto
  • 99_interpretive_notes/ — founders_commentary (non-normative)
  • Policies & meta-docs: CHARTER.md, VERSIONING.md, ETHICAL_TRACEABILITY.md, ESCALATION_AND_PAUSE.md, FAILURE_MODES.md, CROSSWALK_NIST_ISO.md, CONTRIBUTING.md, CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md, SECURITY.md, PROMPT_TEMPLATES.md (non-normative tooling)
  • Tooling: scripts/check_corpus.mjs (self-compliance check), .github/workflows/ci.yml (CI), site/ (docs site)

Rendered SVGs are in diagrams/rendered/ and their D2 sources are in diagrams/.

There is an optional docs UI (Astro Starlight) in site/ that renders the corpus with navigation and search.

  • Local (Docker): docker compose up site-dev (defaults to http://localhost:43210; override with SITE_PORT=...)
  • Cloudflare Pages: set Root directory to site, Build command npm run build, Output dist

See CONTRIBUTING.md. Contributions should:

  • Map changes to one or more Ethical Axioms
  • Specify requirements + compliance evidence
  • Include risk-tier applicability (Tier 0–3) where relevant

Every push and pull request runs .github/workflows/ci.yml, which:

  • builds the docs site (site/) to catch breakage from dependency updates, and
  • runs scripts/check_corpus.mjs, a self-compliance check asserting that every standard in 01_–05_ carries a Traceability Table and Change Log, that no retired requirement IDs reappear, and that every *.md cross-reference resolves.

This corpus — all standards text, documentation, interpretive notes, and diagrams — is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). You may share and adapt the material for any purpose, including commercially, provided you give appropriate credit, link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. See LICENSE for the full text, or https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.