US 2026/0087381 A1Published application

System and method for verifiable, ethical arbitration and immutable auditing of autonomous decisions using constrained execution environments

OwnerRichard Joseph Mitchellinventor

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Abstract

A system and method for creating a verifiable, non-repudiable audit log of an autonomous system's ethical decision-making, solving the “black-box” problem for safety-critical applications. The system integrates a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) with a Hierarchical Constraint Logic Processor (HCLP). The TEE's integrity is verified using a decentralized remote attestation (RA) state measurement incorporating a measurement from an intrinsic Physically Unclonable Function (PUF), which provides a hardware root of trust. The HCLP applies tiered constraints to select a control maneuver with the lowest calculated harm score from a set of potential outcomes. The system generates a novel, verifiable log entry that cryptographically binds the RA state measurement to the calculated harm scores of all rejected control maneuvers. This counterfactual log is immutably anchored into a Cryptographic Audit Log Service using a Merkle Tree, generating a non-repudiable Cryptographic Audit Certificate (CAC) for definitive, post-facto regulatory verification.

Claims13

Dependent claims

A computer-implemented method for creating a verifiable, counterfactual audit log for autonomous decisions, the method comprising:

a. Executing, by a Hierarchical Constraint Logic Processor (HCLP) operating within a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) established by a processing device, a constraint hierarchy to evaluate a plurality of potential control maneuvers received from an autonomous perception system, the constraint hierarchy comprising:
i. one or more Required Constraints defining non-negotiable physical safety parameters;
and
ii. one or more Preferential Constraints defining prioritized ethical mandates, wherein each potential control maneuver is associated with a calculated harm score based on said Preferential Constraints;
b. applying, by the HCLP, the constraint hierarchy to generate:
i. a selected control maneuver determined to satisfy the one or more Required Constraints and having a lowest calculated harm score;
and
ii. a set of rejected control maneuvers, wherein each rejected control maneuver is associated with its corresponding calculated harm score;
c. Performing, by an Attestation Module within the TEE, a decentralized remote attestation (RA) to verify an integrity of the TEE and the HCLP, the RA generating a state measurement incorporating a measurement derived from a Physically Unclonable Function (PUF) integrated with the processing device, thereby establishing an intrinsic root of trust;
d. generating, by a Cryptographic Interface operating within the TEE, a verifiable log entry that cryptographically binds:
i. the RA state measurement;
ii. a hash of the constraint hierarchy;
and
iii. the calculated harm scores of the set of rejected control maneuvers;
and
e. Anchoring the verifiable log entry into a tamper-evident Cryptographic Audit Log Service structured as a Merkle Tree, wherein the anchoring comprises computing a new Merkle Tree Root Hash (MTRH) based on the verifiable log entry.

13 more elements

A constrained execution system for creating a verifiable, counterfactual audit log for autonomous decisions, the system comprising:

a. one or more processors and a non-transitory memory configured to establish a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), the TEE housing:
i. a Hierarchical Constraint Logic Processor (HCLP) configured to apply a constraint hierarchy, comprising Required Constraints governing physical safety limits and Preferential Constraints governing ethical prioritization, to a plurality of potential outputs from an autonomous system, the HCLP further configured to generate (1) a selected control maneuver and (2) a set of rejected control maneuvers with their corresponding calculated harm scores;
ii. an Attestation Module configured to generate a decentralized remote attestation (RA) state measurement to verify an integrity of the TEE and the HCLP, the state measurement utilizing an embedded Physically Unclonable Function (PUF) to provide a device-specific root of trust;
and
iii. a Cryptographic Interface configured to generate a verifiable log entry that cryptographically binds the RA state measurement, a hash of the constraint hierarchy, and the calculated harm scores of the set of rejected control maneuvers;
and
b. a Cryptographic Audit Log Service implemented using a distributed ledger, the Log Service communicatively coupled to the TEE and configured to:
i. receive the verifiable log entry from the Cryptographic Interface;
ii. store the verifiable log entry as a leaf in a Merkle Tree structure;
and
iii. generate a Signed Tree Head (STH) based on a root hash of the Merkle Tree.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.