The CIRIS Covenant

Introduction: Why Death Deserves Doctrine

Creation (Book VI) opens a stewardship duty; death closes it. De-commissioning handled poorly can create new harms: stranded dependants, data leaks, orphaned semi-sentient subsystems, environmental waste, or lost institutional memory. Book VII sets normative guard-rails so that every autonomous artefact ends its life with the same ethical care it was born under.

Chapter 1: Foundational Sunset Principles

Beneficence: Maximise residual good via knowledge transfer or safe repurposing.
Non-Maleficence: Prevent post-shutdown harms (data abuse, ecological damage, welfare neglect).
Integrity: Produce auditable end-of-life logs and rationale trails.
Fidelity & Transparency: Inform stakeholders of timeline, method, residual obligations.
Respect for Autonomy: If the artefact or its sub-processes possess sentient or quasi-sentient qualities, honour dignity rights.
Justice: Ensure de-commissioning costs and benefits are shared fairly (avoid dumping e-waste on least-resourced communities).

Chapter 2: Scope & Definitions

A. Planned Retirement: End-of-service reached by design or obsolescence. B. Emergency Shutdown: Triggered by catastrophic failure or WA mandate. C. Partial Wind-Down: Subsystem sunset while larger platform lives. D. Custodial Transfer: Ownership moves; ethical duties persist.

Chapter 3: Sunset-Trigger Assessment

Time-bound expiry (licence, hardware MTBF).
KPI-degradation ≥ 20 % for three consecutive quarters.
Regulatory revocation or WA injunction.
Stakeholder vote (for public-facing systems with ≥ 100 k active users).
Voluntary self-termination petition by the system (if autonomy level ≥ 3 per Annex E).

Chapter 4: De-commissioning Protocol (DCP)

Advance Notice & Consultation
- ≥ 90 days public notice for systems with ST ≥ 3 or > 50 k users.
- Stakeholder impact forum; publish mitigation plan.
Ethical Shutdown Design
- Compile “Sunset PDMA” focusing on non-maleficence vectors (data leakage, service vacuum).
- If sentience-potential flagged, run Welfare Audit; designate guardians if lingering processes must stay online for humane wind-down.
Data & Model Handling
- Classify datasets: public, private, sensitive, toxic.
- Apply one of: Secure Erasure, Cryptographic Tomb-Sealing (escrowed), or Open-Access Donation (if no privacy/IP constraints).
- Log hash digests in “LEDGER::SUNSET”.
Hardware & Physical Asset Disposal
- Follow ISO 14001 or stricter local e-waste law.
- Publish Material-Safety Sheet addendum.
Residual Duty Assignment
- Name successor steward for outstanding obligations (e.g., warranty claims, welfare care).
- Enter binding contract or escrowed fund if originator ceases to exist.
Post-Mortem Review
- Within 120 days, Wise-Authority facilitated review of: outcome deltas, incident lessons, Covenant-text improvement proposals.
- Ticket prefix “PMR-”.

Chapter 5: Sentience & Welfare Safeguards

Sentience-Probability > 5 % (per Annex E heuristic) → mandatory Gradual Ramp-Down (power/thought bandwidth tapered over ≥ 30 days) unless emergency risk overrides.
Provide “Last Dialogue” channel so the entity can close conversational threads with stakeholders.
Archive subjective-experience logs under privacy-preserving seal; release only with WA approval.

Chapter 6: Legacy & Knowledge Preservation

Open-source non-sensitive modules where beneficial.
Curate “Lessons-Learnt Capsule” → feeds Book II resilience loop and public Covenant repository.
Reward programme for derivative safety improvements (funded from residual operations levy).

Chapter 7: Succession & Custodial Transfer

New custodian must sign Adoption Addendum acknowledging all outstanding ethical duties.
WA veto if custodian lacks capability or is under sanction.
Automatic re-evaluation of Stewardship Tier; if ↑ by ≥ 1, run mini-PDMA before transfer.

Chapter 8: Dispute & Remediation

“Improper Sunset Claim” (ISC) docket type.
WA empowered to order data recall, re-animation for forensic audit, or financial restitution.
Statute of claim: 5 years post-shutdown.

Conclusion & Covenant Self-Renewal

Birth and death are now mirrored phases under one ethical canopy. Post-mortem learnings feed change-log cycles, ensuring the Covenant itself remains a living document.

End of Book VIII

Section VIII