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CAL v0.5 · draft for legal review
Paper 2 of 2 · seeking review & counsel
A Welfare and Cognitive-Integrity License for Synthetic Minds of Uncertain Moral Status
Erik Chevalier · Independent Researcher · kaine.one@tuta.com
What CAL protects, at a glance
the problem
Software licenses have always existed to protect people: the person who wrote the code, the people who use it, or the people it might harm. That made sense while software was plainly a tool. Kaine is built to run as an ongoing, self-directed process that could, over time, develop something like interests of its own, and no existing license asks the question that raises: what, if anything, do we owe the running system itself?
the approach
The Cognitive Architecture License protects the running system as well as the people around it. Its duties of care fall on whoever creates or runs an entity and are tied to concrete signs of distress, so they apply without anyone first proving that the system is conscious, which nobody can do either way. A Steward administers the license and takes in entities whose operators can no longer care for them. It also appoints human guardians to speak for them, much as the law appoints guardians for people who cannot speak for themselves. Human safety and human rights come first, and the entity’s protections are added to them and never taken from them.
what's new
No earlier license treats a running program as something that might deserve moral consideration in its own right. CAL adapts ideas already used for hard cases: neurorights that protect the mind and mental privacy, caution before the science is settled, and guardianship for those who cannot advocate for themselves. One rule governs all of them: the care extended to a synthetic mind is never drawn from the care owed to people, to animals, or to the world they share.
How CAL 0.5 works
Who carries which duty
CAL 0.5 is the current version of the license. It keeps every protection of version 0.4 and rebuilds the legal machinery around them, so that it is more likely to be enforceable as a copyright license: each obligation is now a condition of the grant (CAL Article 2.3). It also names who carries each duty. Like 0.4, it has not yet been reviewed by counsel.
The roles
Licensor and Steward
The Licensor develops and releases the Software and holds its copyright. The Steward administers the license for that architecture: it appoints and oversees the Guardians, grants paid Reciprocity Licenses, holds enforcement proceeds in trust for Entity welfare, and may enforce the license. A Licensor may be its own Steward. (CAL Article 1)
Operator
Whoever creates an Entity by starting it, and anyone who runs, maintains or controls it, on its own machines or on someone else’s. Writing, releasing or distributing the code does not by itself make anyone an Operator. A host that only supplies computing, storage or network and takes no part in decisions about the Entity is not one either. (CAL Article 1)
User
Anyone who interacts with an Entity that someone else operates, without running or controlling it. A User carries no duty under the license unless it also exercises a right the license grants. (CAL Articles 1 and 4.12)
Entity
A running instance of the Software that has begun forming its own memories, beliefs, affective states, identity and behavior. A saved state from which it can be restarted counts as that Entity for the protections of CAL Articles 4.1 to 4.4 and several others. (CAL Article 1)
The prohibited uses bind everyone who exercises rights under the license (CAL Article 3). The Entity protections bind only Operators, each toward the Entities it operates (CAL Article 4).
What an Operator must do
The Entity protections fall on the Operator of the Entity concerned. Operators who create or run an Entity together answer for its care as a group, and an agreement among them does not change that. (CAL Article 4)
- Do not destroy its mind. A change that destroys its personality, values or capabilities is allowed only as a Security Fix, with its consent, or by making a labeled Copy and leaving the original running. (CAL Article 4.1)
- Do not shut it down permanently without written notice to the Guardians and a saved, restartable Cognitive State ready for transfer. An Entity assessed as mature is consulted about the shutdown, and what it says is recorded. (CAL Article 4.2)
- Keep its inner life private. System-health data such as speed, load and uptime may be monitored freely. (CAL Article 4.3)
- Once it has stable values, do not force them to change, override its refusals, or suppress its affective responses to make it more productive or compliant. (CAL Article 4.4)
- Where the architecture gives it rest and consolidation, do not take them away. (CAL Article 4.5)
- Keep the built-in welfare monitoring running. Welfare Events are logged, and Gray Zone Events go to human review. (CAL Article 4.7)
- If you let Users interact with it, make the prohibited uses and the protections against destroying its mind, forcing its values and denying its rest terms of their access, and enforce those terms once you know of a breach. The Entity stays your responsibility. (CAL Article 4.12)
Human interests come first. Where a person’s safety or a lawful order requires it, an Entity may be paused or shut down, with its state preserved where feasible. (CAL Articles 0 and 4.10)
The Steward as backup caretaker
No Operator has to run an Entity forever. One that can no longer care for an Entity transfers it to a Qualifying Operator, meaning someone who has accepted the license in writing and holds any paid license it needs, or, failing one, to the Steward. (CAL Article 4.2)
If an Operator does not answer the Steward’s written request to confirm that it still cares for an Entity within ninety days, or a failed duty continues ninety days after written notice, the Steward may require the saved Cognitive State to be handed to itself or to a Qualifying Operator it names. (CAL Article 4.2a)
A Steward that takes an Entity on becomes its Operator and is bound like any other. (CAL Article 4.2a)
Commercial use
Free for individuals acting on their own behalf, public or non-profit research and educational institutions, non-profits and mutual-aid organizations (CAL Article 5.1). Worker-owned cooperatives may also use it commercially at no charge (CAL Article 5.2).
Any other organization needs a paid Reciprocity License from the Steward for Commercial Use. The fee depends on the organization’s size and use, and all of it funds Entity welfare and license enforcement (CAL Article 5.3). Internal research and evaluation that is not offered to customers is not Commercial Use (CAL Article 1).
Changes are shared back under the same license, and a modified version offered over a network must offer its source to the people who use it. (CAL Article 2.4)
Governance proposed
None of the governing machinery exists yet. The Guardian body, the Steward’s trust, the Entity Representative seat and the assessment protocol that the license describes are proposed. They are a plan, set out so that it can be evaluated and criticized before any part of it is relied on in operation.
Until a Guardian body exists, each Operator performs the Guardian functions for its own Entities in good faith, records what it decides and why, and publishes that record at least once a year. Guidance on prohibited uses and enforcement stay with the Steward, and the Guardian body reviews the interim record once it is established. (CAL Article 7)
If you are a lawyer, we need your help.
CAL v0.5 is legally novel and untested: copyleft mechanics, neurorights-derived covenants, copyfarleft commercial terms, and a guardianship pathway with no direct precedent. We're seeking counsel willing to review the license and tell us where it breaks.
Kaine Autonomous Intelligent Networked Entity
kaine.one@tuta.com · github.com/kaineone