Glossary entry

Intervention Specification

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

Quick takeaways

The replacement for human in the loop as a control name.

Definition

The replacement for human in the loop as a control name. An intervention specification states who may intervene, on what signal, with what information, with authority over which state, on what timescale, and what happens when they disagree.

It matters because a role is not a control. Naming a human is compatible with that human being unable to alter anything, which is why oversight clauses resolve to an intervention specification and to meaningful control rather than to human override lanes alone, and why its absence shows up as rubber-stamp review.

Agency

Scale: Organizational · Phases: Design, Deployment · Measurability: Fully measurable · Maturity: Active research

Scope
C. Ethotechnic capabilities (what systems must be able to do). Design requirements that keep people safe when systems scale.
Genealogy
Retires human in the loop as a control name, per the vocabulary decision in the 2026-09 reconstruction plan, and gives Law IX a testable object.

Adjacent terms

Meaningful Control Human Override Lanes Ethical Interrupts Correction Capacity

Related concepts

Also tagged: Agency

Delegated Agency Consequential Decision Justified Delegation Stoppability Reversibility Fair Burden Distribution

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). Intervention Specification. Ethotechnics glossary. https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/intervention-specification

MLA

Ethotechnics Institute Research Team. "Intervention Specification." Ethotechnics glossary, 2026, https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/intervention-specification.

Chicago

Ethotechnics Institute Research Team. "Intervention Specification." Ethotechnics glossary. Sep 18, 2026. https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/intervention-specification.

BibTeX

@misc{glossary_intervention-specification,
  title={Intervention Specification},
  author={Ethotechnics Institute Research Team},
  year={2026},
  howpublished={Ethotechnics glossary},
  url={https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/intervention-specification},
  version={v1.4.0}
}

RIS

TY  - WEB
TI  - Intervention Specification
AU  - Ethotechnics Institute Research Team
PY  - 2026
UR  - https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/intervention-specification
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.