AI executes the how.
Humans decide the why.
Direction is the last human domain. HAP enforces it.
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.
Direction is human.
Execution is machine.
HAP keeps the boundary intact.
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.
Humans define what we are deciding. AI has no context until a human sets the decision boundary.
Every action needs a reason. AI calculates solutions; only humans determine if the problem is worth solving.
AI optimizes for any metric. Only humans can choose which outcome actually matters.
Every choice abandons alternatives. Only humans can accept the loss of what is sacrificed.
Commitment makes a choice binding. Only a human can make an AI action irreversible.
Authorship and Ownership are unified. No action is taken without an identifiable human who bears the consequences.
AI detects missing or ambiguous decision states: frame, problem, objective, tradeoff, commitment, or decision owner.
HAP triggers a structured question that forces human direction.
The human confirms the decision the AI must follow.
Only then does the system continue.
No skipping.
No inference.
No silent automation.
The EU AI Act mandates it. ISO 42001 requires it. NIST AI RMF recommends it. But none of them say how.
HAP is the how. It enforces human oversight at the protocol level — not through policies that can be ignored, but through cryptographic gates that cannot be bypassed.
Every AI action requires a human Decision Owner who has articulated the problem, objective, and tradeoffs. No attestation, no execution.
Article 14 mandates effective human oversight for high-risk AI. HAP satisfies this structurally — oversight is not a checkbox, it's the architecture.
Every decision produces a cryptographic trail of authorship, tradeoffs, and commitments — tamper-proof and verifiable.
As AI accelerates, execution becomes free.
Abundance becomes default.
The real scarcity becomes human direction — decisions that commit someone and shape a trajectory.
If humans stop making the hard calls, machines will make them by default — quietly, through convenience.
HAP is the infrastructure that keeps direction human.
How direction is described, measured, and enforced
How to integrate HAP into your systems
See HAP enforcement in action
Verified infrastructure enforcing compliance
Transparent, federated oversight
HAP turns human direction into the governing layer of intelligent systems.