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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Policy Enactment Reliability (PER): The probability that the holder will successfully execute its chosen U.Method under operational conditions. The event is successful Method execution; a result or safety claim needs its own basis.
5. Objective Complexity (OC): A measure of the complexity of the U.Objective the 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.