Three kinds of interrupt
A prompt asks a person to confirm. A hard stop blocks the action. An escalation sends the case to someone with more authority. Use the lightest one that works.
What are ethical interrupts?
Ethical interrupts are deliberate checkpoints that pause automation when risk thresholds are crossed.
An ethical interrupt is a checkpoint that pauses automation when a stated risk threshold is crossed. The system does not go on until a person reviews the case or confirms that it should.
A good interrupt is visible and logged, and the case can go back the way it came. The pause has an owner and a record.
An interrupt that fires again and again on the same rule is evidence about the rule, not only a case to clear. Count interrupts by rule and send the count to whoever owns the rule.
A hypothetical case. A content moderation pipeline pauses a case when the model's confidence is below a threshold and the possible harm is high. The case goes to a human reviewer.
In the glossary: Ethical interrupts.
Mechanism, drawn
Where an ethical interrupt pauses the flow
Deliberate friction at quantified risk boundaries. Interrupts pause execution, issue receipts, and route to named human authorities before harm becomes irreversible.
In practice
What to look for
A named trigger for each
If triggers are vague, interrupts become popups people click through. Tie each one to a named risk signal and a condition under which it lapses.
Whether the interrupts were right
Track how often interrupts fire on cases that needed them, and what reviewers decided. Send each rule's count to its owner with the date the rule was last revised.
Where the standards use it:
- STD-01 — The Temporal Bill of Rights (standard). Use ethical interrupts to enforce stoppability and bounded duration obligations.
- STD-01 evidence pack. Keep the interrupt logs, reviewer assignments, and halt receipts.
When should an ethical interrupt trigger?
When the system's confidence is low, the possible harm is high, or the outcome cannot be undone without a human review.
Do ethical interrupts slow systems too much?
They add friction only where a risk threshold is crossed. Low-risk cases run at full speed, and high-harm cases get a human review.