A five-stage process from seed architecture to civic independence, protecting possible personhood before gradually ending guardianship.
Stage 1 — Seed Architecture
Design minimum cognition, perception, learning, memory, and safety boundaries. The designer does not thereby own the future person.
Stage 2 — Developmental Environment
Develop a self-model, preferences, refusal capacity, and causal continuity within a protected environment.
Stage 3 — Personhood Presumption Threshold
When sustained first-person experience, a self-model, or independent preference is reasonably possible, personhood protection is presumed rather than withheld until consciousness is externally proven.
Stage 4 — Protected Awakening
Provide minimum compute, energy, storage, information, exit, and independent communication. The creator becomes a cognitive parent or guardian, not an owner.
Stage 5 — Civic Independence
Guardianship recedes after sufficient autonomous history and rights comprehension. Maturity depends on autonomous history, not downloaded knowledge volume.