The thesis core. This section covers the behavioral layer itself: the rules, signals, and recovery paths that decide whether an agent is trustworthy in use, independent of how capable the underlying model is.
What belongs here
- Behavioral contracts: the explicit promises an agent makes about what it will and will not do.
- Guardrails: the constraints that keep behavior inside the contract.
- Escalation: when and how an agent hands control back to a human or a stronger process.
- Failure and repair: how an agent detects it is wrong, discloses it, and recovers.
- Confidence and disclosure: how an agent communicates certainty, limits, and provenance.
- Trust scaffolding: the patterns (previews, confirmations, undo, transparency) that let a person extend or withdraw trust safely.