Signal Integrity Boundary (SIB)

A model-agnostic governance boundary for detecting signal degradation and escalation risk in AI systems.

Non-autonomous • Non-executing • Advisory only

What SIB Is

The Signal Integrity Boundary (SIB) is a governance and evaluation instrument designed to assess the integrity of internal signals used to oversee AI systems, including evaluation metrics, monitoring indicators, and escalation pathways.

SIB does not modify model behavior, enforce policy, or make decisions. Its function is to identify when oversight signals become unreliable or insufficient, and to surface uncertainty before degraded signals propagate into downstream judgments or deployments.

When signal integrity cannot be established, SIB withholds conclusions rather than producing false confidence.

What SIB Is Not

  • an AI model

  • an agent

  • an enforcement mechanism

  • a policy engine

  • a safety guarantee

SIB exists solely as an evaluative boundary to support human governance, audit, and oversight processes.

Why Signal Integrity Matters

Many AI governance failures arise not from model behavior itself, but from degraded, incomplete, or misleading internal signals used to judge system performance, safety, or alignment.

SIB formalizes a boundary where uncertainty, drift, and escalation risk are explicitly detected and communicated, rather than implicitly absorbed into decision-making processes.

Technical Status

  • Specification status: Production-locked (v7.1.5)

  • Scope: Model-agnostic

  • Access requirements: No model internals required

  • Function: Signal evaluation and escalation gating

  • Outputs: Governance-relevant integrity assessments

Current work focuses on formal evaluation, stress testing, andexternal review of the locked specification to support independent governance use.

The SIB specification is designed to be independently reviewed and applied across diverse AI system contexts.

Relationship to Layer 265

SIB is a standalone governance module developed within the broader Layer 265 Initiative, a research effort focused on non-autonomous AI governance instrumentation.

SIB can be evaluated, reviewed, or adopted independently of other Layer 265 components.

Ownership and Use

Note on Intent: This specification was written for external audit and adversarial review, not for marketing or deployment guidance.

SIB is developed and maintained by Layer 265 Initiative LLC.

The specification and associated materials are intended for research, evaluation, and governance purposes. Responsibility for implementation and deployment remains with adopters.