Ethics Debt — Operational test: New launches add obligations without increasing repair capacity or budget.
Operational test "New launches add obligations without increasing repair capacity or budget." for Ethics Debt in the Failure modes (why Ethotechnics exists) glossary category.
Operational test
New launches add obligations without increasing repair capacity or budget.
Use this test to validate operational readiness.
Pair this test with the minimum evidence criteria to capture both qualitative and quantitative signals.
- Evidence artifact: Artifact documenting how Ethics Debt is expected, enforced, or governed.
- Behavior signal: Observed behavior showing Ethics Debt in practice during real use or drills.
- Metric signal: Metric tracked to monitor Ethics Debt performance over time.
The accumulation of unresolved ethical risk from shipping capabilities faster than governance, ownership, and repair mechanisms. Ethics debt grows when maintenance debt outpaces the repair log and risks remain unfunded.
B. Failure modes (why Ethotechnics exists). Common patterns where responsibility dissolves and harm accelerates.
Frames ethical risk as a backlog that compounds without investment.