Glossary entry

Case Corrigibility

Glossary entry in Ethotechnic capabilities (what systems must be able to do). Definitions, checks, and evidence for Case Corrigibility.

Quick takeaways

The capacity to fix a particular bad decision: an appeal is heard, a reversal is issued, a person is restored.

Definition

The capacity to fix a particular bad decision: an appeal is heard, a reversal is issued, a person is restored. It is what most contestability regimes measure, because it is what the instruments can see.

It matters because case corrigibility without structural corrigibility is locally corrigible and globally rigid: the person is restored, the pattern is not, and everything the institution does about the pattern happens after the fact and at the level of the individual, which is the one level at which the pattern does not appear.

AgencyStructural

Scale: Organizational · Phases: Deployment, Repair · Measurability: Semi-quantitative · Maturity: Core concept

Scope
C. Ethotechnic capabilities (what systems must be able to do). Design requirements that keep people safe when systems scale.
Genealogy
Half of the corrigibility distinction the theory of exception learning draws; the other half is structural corrigibility.

Adjacent terms

Structural Corrigibility Reversibility Contestability Exception Absorption

Related concepts

Also tagged: Agency

Delegated Agency Consequential Decision Justified Delegation Stoppability Reversibility Fair Burden Distribution

Also tagged: Structural

Ethotechnics Moral Behavior (of Systems) Ethical Load Path Ethotechnic Audit Conviviality Ethotechnic Maturity

References

Copy citation (APA/BibTeX)

Cite this glossary entry Formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, BibTeX, RIS

Version

v1.4.0

Last updated

Sep 18, 2026

DOI

Pending Zenodo deposit

APA

Ethotechnics Institute Research Team. (2026). Case Corrigibility. Ethotechnics glossary. https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/case-corrigibility

MLA

Ethotechnics Institute Research Team. "Case Corrigibility." Ethotechnics glossary, 2026, https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/case-corrigibility.

Chicago

Ethotechnics Institute Research Team. "Case Corrigibility." Ethotechnics glossary. Sep 18, 2026. https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/case-corrigibility.

BibTeX

@misc{glossary_case-corrigibility,
  title={Case Corrigibility},
  author={Ethotechnics Institute Research Team},
  year={2026},
  howpublished={Ethotechnics glossary},
  url={https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/case-corrigibility},
  version={v1.4.0}
}

RIS

TY  - WEB
TI  - Case Corrigibility
AU  - Ethotechnics Institute Research Team
PY  - 2026
UR  - https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/case-corrigibility
ER  -

Scholarly metadata

Authorship

Contact: research@ethotechnics.org

Publication details

  • Published: Dec 3, 2025
  • Last updated: Sep 18, 2026
  • Version: v1.4.0
  • DOI: Pending Zenodo deposit

License: CC BY-SA 4.0

Credit Ethotechnics Institute, include the term title + version, and link to the glossary permalink.

Archive: Wayback Machine history

Changelog

  • v1.7.0 · 2026-09-18 — Added Non-Finality, Consequential Contradiction, and The Excluded Case, and generalized the falsified denominator into the falsified ledger — completing the five concerns and the fallibilist ground they stand on.
  • v1.6.0 · 2026-09-18 — Added Human Non-Substitutability, Safe Incompleteness, Anti-Conversion Rights, Abstention, Constitutional Debt, Discretion Migration, and Corrigibility Rent — the person-side principles, the three abstentions, and the rent concept.
  • v1.5.0 · 2026-09-18 — Added Exception Absorption, Exception Learning, Case Corrigibility, Structural Corrigibility, Institutional Learning, Corrective Debt, and the Workaround Presumption, formalizing the historical turn: reading institutions through their failure trajectories rather than their stated controls.
  • v1.4.0 · 2026-09-18 — Added Residual Complexity, Complexity Displacement, Falsified Denominator, Closure Without Remainder, Constitutional Governance, and Post-Optimization Rigor, embedding the foundational contention of burden redistribution.
  • v1.3.0 · 2026-09-11 — Added Attestation, Liability Record, Carve-Out, Delegation Chain, Composed Latency, and Silent-Harm Discovery, each bound to the standard clause that requires it.
  • v1.2.0 · 2026-09-08 — Added The Non-Conversion Principle, Exit Cost, and Jurisdictional Path Dependence, each linked to the theory essay that argues for it.
  • v1.1.0 · 2026-01-09 — Expanded scholarly metadata, operational tests, and provenance notes.
  • v1.0.0 · 2025-12-03 — Initial glossary release with stable permalinks.