Execution is cheap.
Direction is scarce.

HAP is the protocol for human-authored direction. It ensures AI never executes without a Decision Owner.

AI optimizes execution at machine speed, but it cannot author direction.
It scales the how, but only humans can decide the why.

Direction is the last human domain. HAP protects it.

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The Scarcity of Direction

Modern AI doesn't wait. It predicts, escalates, and acts at machine speed. But without human leadership, AI moves into a decision vacuum—substituting statistical probability for the unique human innovation that creates real value.

To remain in control, we must enforce a fundamental boundary:

“No consequential action may be taken in a human system without an identifiable human who has explicitly authorized it, understood its tradeoffs, and accepted responsibility for its outcomes.”

HAP turns this axiom into infrastructure. It ensures every action traces back to a human Decision Owner who provides the direction machine intelligence cannot duplicate. By forcing AI to pause at the point of irreversibility, HAP keeps authorship human and innovation possible.

What AI Can Do vs. What Humans Must Do

AI can:

  • generate options
  • simulate outcomes
  • execute tasks
  • correct mistakes
  • plan optimally
  • scale instantly

AI cannot:

  • set the frame
  • justify why to act (problem)
  • choose what to optimize (objective)
  • accept the tradeoff
  • make binding commitment
  • be a decision owner

Direction is human.
Execution is machine.
HAP keeps the boundary intact.

The Six Human Gates

AI can simulate a thousand paths, but it cannot open the gate to any of them. HAP enforces these mandatory preconditions before any execution begins.

Frame — The Boundary

Humans define what we are deciding. AI has no context until a human sets the decision boundary.

Problem — The Justification

Every action needs a reason. AI calculates solutions; only humans determine if the problem is worth solving.

Objective — The Optimization

AI optimizes for any metric. Only humans can choose which outcome actually matters.

Tradeoff — The Cost

Every choice abandons alternatives. Only humans can accept the loss of what is sacrificed.

Commitment — The Point of No Return

Commitment makes a choice binding. Only a human can make an AI action irreversible.

Decision Owner — The Responsibility

Authorship and Ownership are unified. No action is taken without an identifiable human who bears the consequences.

How HAP Works

Stop → Ask → Confirm → Proceed

1

Stop

AI detects missing or ambiguous decision states: frame, problem, objective, tradeoff, commitment, or decision owner.

2

Ask

HAP triggers a structured question that forces human direction.

3

Confirm

The human confirms the decision the AI must follow.

4

Proceed

Only then does the system continue.

No skipping.
No inference.
No silent automation.

Compliant by Architecture

Aligning with the EU AI Act—the global benchmark for AI governance.

The EU AI Act mandates that high-risk AI systems must be subject to effective human oversight (Article 14). HAP transforms this legal requirement from a policy checkbox into enforceable protocol behavior.

Verifiable Oversight

Directly satisfies regulatory mandates by ensuring AI never acts without an explicit "gate" opened by a human.

Liability Protection

Closes the legal vacuum of "unowned" AI execution by cryptographically linking every action to a human Decision Owner.

Audit-Ready Infrastructure

Provides a structural, tamper-proof trail of authorship, tradeoffs, and commitments for every consequence domain.

Why This Matters Now

As AI accelerates, execution becomes free.
Abundance becomes default.

The real scarcity becomes human direction — decisions that cost something, commit someone, and shape a trajectory.

This is the last human value.

If humans stop making the hard calls, machines will make them by default.
And once AI defines direction, human agency dissolves — quietly, through convenience.

HAP is the boundary that preserves human authorship in an automated world.

What HAP Enables

Individuals

You stop drifting through AI-generated options and start defining what matters.

Teams

Alignment becomes real — because decisions require explicit, domain-scoped commitment from all affected decision owners.

Organizations

Strategy becomes human-led again. Authorship and ownership are unified across every consequence domain.

Society

We preserve the one thing automation cannot replace:
the human ability to choose a direction worth living for.

HAP assumes all execution bodies are untrusted.
No human direction may be exposed to any executor (AGI, server, or human) until a valid attestation proves all six gates were closed under a recognized Blueprint.

The Executor Proxy—not the executor—validates attestations.
Executors receive only minimal, non-semantic instructions derived from pre-ratified decisions.

Build With HAP

HAP turns human direction into the governing layer of intelligent systems.