WHYLD research is guided by the following ethical constraints:
No intelligence system should act without explicit governance determining when action is permitted.
Systems must distinguish between verified evidence and probabilistic inference. When evidence is insufficient, abstention is preferred.
Failure, degradation, and misuse are treated as expected operational conditions, not exceptional cases.
Where possible, systems should avoid collecting or retaining user data entirely.
WHYLD research rejects architectures that require centralized dominance, irreversible control, or opaque authority.
These constraints are treated as non-negotiable design inputs.