A.13:4 - Solution
Establish the agency core first. Add the characteristic profile when the receiving claim requires it; use a Grade only as its didactic summary.
A.13:4.1 - The Core Definition: Agential participation through an exact system-role assignment
An ordinary-language “agent” is not a fundamental FPF type. When a precise agency claim is needed, name four things:
- the acting holder recognized as a
U.System; - the exact local agential system-role kind whose membership criterion the holder satisfies;
- an occurrence of a directly declared
U.SystemRoleAssignmentspecies that assigns that kind to the holder and actually obtains; and - any claim scope, working situation, and time window needed by the intended use, kept separate from the assignment’s identity.
This keeps a useful ordinary word without creating a universal Agent or AgentialRole kind. Classification by the local kind does not establish an assignment or performed Work. An episteme cannot be this assignment’s holder because the holder must be a U.System. Evidence supports the core facts independently of any profile; a characteristic-only claim about an admitted System need not add an assignment.
A.13:4.2 - Local Agential System-Role Kinds and Their Specializations
- Local agential system-role kind: A practice or source may define a local kind whose stable work-facing contribution is goal-directed action. The kind classifies candidate Systems under its own criterion; it is not a universal root kind, an assignment occurrence, or Work.
- Specialized agential system-role kinds: A local practice may distinguish transformation, observation, planning, or another contribution when it supplies a real criterion for the distinction. An assignment to one such kind establishes only that assignment; any transformation, observation, plan, or performed Work still needs its own claim.
A.13:4.3 - Measuring Agency: The Agency Characteristic Profile and the Spectrum
The agency-characteristic profile describes distinct capabilities of the holder. Use it for a consumed Grade/autonomy/profile claim, a characteristic-dependent local criterion or a named assurance use that requires it. A.13 defines this domain profile; A.17, A.18, A.19, C.16 and A.10 govern characterization, measurement and evidence.
The following descriptions state what the five characteristics concern. A measured value also needs its declared characteristic definition, scale, measurement method and evidence basis under the patterns above. Each measurement names its holder and, where relevant, task family or work target, claim scope, situation and time window. A.10 governs the claim’s evidence and provenance.
- Boundary Maintenance Capacity (BMC): The ability of the System to maintain its own structural and functional integrity against perturbations. The maintained property is the holder’s integrity, not merely the value it controls.
- Predictive Horizon (PH): The temporal or causal depth of the holder’s internal model. State which depth the claim uses; the horizon is distinct from prediction accuracy.
- Model Plasticity (MP): The rate at which the holder can update its internal model (
U.GenerativeModel) in response to prediction errors (U.Error). Describe the model update and its rate; evaluate capability acquisition separately under E.10.LRN. - Policy Enactment Reliability (PER): The probability that the holder will successfully execute its chosen
U.Methodunder operational conditions. The event is successful Method execution; a result or safety claim needs its own basis. - Objective Complexity (OC): A measure of the complexity of the
U.Objectivethe holder can pursue, from simple set-points to abstract, multi-scale goals. These examples distinguish objectives; a complexity comparison needs a declared criterion and scale.
A.13:4.3.1 - Task-family specialization claims
When assessing a holder’s time-to-usable specialization, name the holder, TaskFamily and work target. Use C.22 for the task anchor and C.22.1 for adaptation time or budget to the declared work-measure threshold. Keep task family, work target, claim scope, situation, measurement window, threshold, adaptation budget and provenance basis distinct where the claim uses them. The same holder can show different specializations for different task families; this does not establish greater intelligence in general or a new U-kind.
Low-human-overlap or newly discovered task families remain admissible when the task family, evidence basis, and reuse window are explicit by value.
A.13:4.4 - The Agency Grade (Didactic Layer)
Engineers and managers can use the Agency Grade as a non-normative, didactic summary of a profile. The scale runs from 0 to 4; an assurance use that consumes agency characteristics needs their supported values, not this summary.
| Grade | Label | Typical agency-characteristic profile (Conservative Lower Bound) | Archetypal Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Non-Agential | BMC ≈ 0, PH ≈ 0, MP ≈ 0 | An admitted System whose supported profile has the stated values. A document or another non-System has no Agency Grade. |
| 1 | Reactive | BMC > 0, PH ≈ 0, MP ≈ 0 | A thermostat; a simple feedback controller. Follows fixed rules. |
| 2 | Predictive | BMC > 0, PH > 0, MP ≈ 0 | A model-predictive controller with a fixed model; a chess engine that plans moves but doesn’t learn new strategies. |
| 3 | Adaptive | BMC > 0, PH > 0, MP > 0 | A self-calibrating sensor system; a machine learning agent that updates its model with new data. |
| 4 | Reflective/Strategic | High BMC, PH, MP, PER, and OC. Capable of meta-cognition (reasoning about its own reasoning) and pursuing abstract goals. | An autonomous R&D system; a cohesive, self-organizing DevOps team. |
The Grade 0 label summarizes a profile; it does not settle the separate local-kind classification or assignment claim.
The profile states characteristic claims and their supporting evidence; the Grade is a pedagogical summary. A claim about a holder’s Agency Grade requires a corresponding auditable profile under CC-A13.3. The Grade remains unavailable as a normative premise under CC-A13.4.