Deterministic Ethical Governance for Autonomous Flight Control Systems: Pre-Execution Authority in Safety-Critical Autonomy
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Autonomous flight systems increasingly operate with delegated execution authority in environments where error can result in catastrophic physical harm or loss of life. This work advances the central claim that probabilistic inference systems are structurally incompatible with execution authority in safety-critical autonomy. The paper demonstrates that likelihood estimation cannot guarantee refusal, fail-closed behavior, or bounded state transitions, all of which are prerequisites for legitimate authority in flight control systems. It argues that execution authority must be governed deterministically at the system level and enforced prior to action, independent of model behavior, confidence, or performance. The work is intentionally non-enabling and focuses on logical necessity and governance architecture rather than implementation detail. It omits control laws, algorithms, thresholds, and tuning parameters, and is intended to support governance, certification reasoning, and foundational research in autonomous flight safety.
Author: Gough, Timothy M.
Language: English
Subfield: Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7117326849
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