Stopability
Capabilities
A system’s ability to halt harmful processes quickly and automatically—without requiring heroism or escalation.
Focused Ethotechnic territory
Capabilities
Design requirements that keep people safe when systems scale.
Design requirements that keep people safe when systems scale.
Use this chapter when you only need capabilities definitions.
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C. Ethotechnic capabilities (what systems must be able to do)
Design requirements that keep people safe when systems scale.
Reversibility
Capabilities
Critical actions can be undone. Damage is not permanent by default, and time-to-restore stays low.
Fair Burden Distribution
Capabilities
Failures do not fall hardest on the most vulnerable. Burden is treated as a design variable and measured via the user burden ratio.
Contestability
Capabilities
People affected by system decisions can challenge, change, or overturn them—and win. Contestability combines permission surface and appeal passage rate.
Explainability for Accountability
Capabilities
Explanations that are actionable, not decorative. They reveal who made a decision and how it can be corrected, enabling contestability and audits.
Human Refusal-Tolerance
Capabilities
The system remains usable when people opt out, are confused, make mistakes, or withdraw cooperation. Refusal tolerance prevents extraction by endurance.
Graceful Degradation
Coming soonCapabilities
When systems fail, they fail softly—not catastrophically.
Soft Edges
Coming soonCapabilities
Transitions that avoid punishing users at boundaries, thresholds, or edge cases.