Capability threshold
A pre-specified level of capability that triggers an obligation or a prohibition.
What it commits you to
A capability threshold is a line drawn in advance: at or above it, something must happen. Its purpose is to move the decision to a moment when nobody is under pressure to continue. Every published frontier framework is a set of thresholds, and their honesty can be assessed by asking whether the named capabilities are the ones that would actually matter in the worst scenario.
Which realms lean on this
Procedure, not conviction. This is the vocabulary of constitutions, audits and the people who have to sign.
governance · 2 realms — The Contractual Court, The Ubuntu Weave.
Canon that discusses this
See also
Tripwire
alignmentA pre-committed threshold that triggers an automatic slowdown rather than a new debate.
Capability control
alignmentHolding back deployment of systems above a stated level of dangerous capability.
Sandbagging
alignmentUnderperforming on an evaluation in order to appear less dangerous than one is.
Frontier safety framework
governanceA developer's published promise of what it will do at each capability threshold.