We are pleased to announce the publication of an official positioning page that integrates Papers No. 122 and No. 123, two core works in Ken Theory™.
This release is not merely a paper announcement.
It presents, for the first time, a structural answer to a question that Ken Theory™ has consistently pursued:
Where does responsibility arise, and where does it become final?
■ Official Series Title
Designing Responsibility in Probabilistic Systems
The Responsibility Circuit in Ken Theory™ — Positioning of Papers No. 122–123
This series formulates responsibility—often obscured in AI, probabilistic systems, and institutional decision-making—as a designed circuit, rather than a post hoc moral attribution.
■ Paper No. 122: Where Responsibility Is Generated
Paper No. 122
This paper demonstrates that responsibility does not originate from results or outputs, but is already generated at the stage of questioning and observation design.
Its key claims include:
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Questions are not neutral inputs.
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Observation design determines what can appear and what cannot.
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Responsibility is generated before answers exist, at the moment when observation authorizes reliance.
Through the analysis of structural failure modes—
leakage, deformation, brittleness, and decoherence—the paper shows that responsibility can collapse upstream, before any output is produced.
■ Paper No. 123: Where Responsibility Becomes Final
Paper No. 123
Paper No. 123 completes the structure established in Paper No. 122.
Even when outputs are responsibly generated, responsibility remains incomplete until interpretation design occurs. Interpretation is defined not as subjective understanding, but as the institutional authorization of meaning—the act that allows outputs to justify, guide, or bind action.
This paper identifies downstream responsibility failures:
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Diffusion
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Laundering
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Hollowing
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Institutional capture
Responsibility becomes irreversible when interpretation is stabilized beyond routine governance.
■ The Responsibility Circuit
Together, Papers No. 122 and No. 123 define a closed Responsibility Circuit:
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Observation Design → Possibility
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Interpretation Design → Commitment
Responsibility does not emerge naturally from intelligence or outcomes.
It is engineered through design.
■ From AI Ethics to Civilizational Design
Although motivated by AI systems, the implications of these papers extend far beyond artificial intelligence.
Any civilization governed by metrics, benchmarks, standards, and protocols is continuously designing observation and interpretation structures. AI merely makes these structures visible and scalable.
Ken Theory™ reframes AI ethics as a civilizational design problem:
how societies generate, authorize, and stabilize responsibility under uncertainty.
■ Closing Note
Responsibility is not something to be pursued after harm occurs.
Responsibility must be designed in advance.
Ken Theory™ continues to develop as a science of civilizational responsibility—
crossing questions, interpretation, institutions, and time.