Open Autonomous Intelligence Initiative

An OAII advocacy perspective

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Aging‑in‑place is often framed as a problem of sensors, alerts, or caregiver dashboards. That framing is incomplete — and, in many cases, dangerous.

Aging‑in‑place is fundamentally a problem of interpretation under constraint:

• interpretation of human activity without surveillance,
• interpretation of change without diagnosis,
• interpretation of risk without stripping dignity or autonomy.

These constraints are not accidental. They are ethical requirements.

This is why aging‑in‑place demands open, object‑oriented AI models, not closed, monolithic systems.

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The Core Challenge: Meaning Without Surveillance

Homes are not hospitals. They are private, adaptive, deeply contextual spaces.

An aging‑in‑place system must be able to answer questions like:

• Has something meaningful changed?
• Is attention warranted?
• What context matters right now?

It must do so without:

• continuous monitoring,
• centralized behavioral profiling,
• opaque inference pipelines,
• or irreversible data capture.

This immediately rules out many conventional AI architectures.

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Why Closed, Monolithic AI Fails in the Home

Monolithic AI systems assume:

• stable data distributions,
• centralized training and control,
• implicit global models of behavior,
• limited need for explanation.

In aging‑in‑place, these assumptions break down.

Behavior is personal. Context is local. Conditions evolve. And errors have human consequences.

Closed systems also concentrate power:

• users cannot inspect them,
• caregivers cannot audit them,
• regulators cannot meaningfully assess them.

This is not merely a technical problem — it is a governance failure.

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Object‑Oriented Models Enable Ethical Boundaries

Object‑oriented AI models force explicit structure.

They require designers to name and separate:

• Worlds (contexts and boundaries),
• Sensors (what is observed),
• Signals (what is measured),
• Events (what is interpreted),
• Knowledge (what is remembered),
• Policies (what actions are allowed).

Each object has:

• defined responsibilities,
• defined interfaces,
• defined limits.

This structure is not cosmetic. It is what makes ethical constraints enforceable.

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Openness Is a Safety Property

In aging‑in‑place systems, openness is not about ideology or convenience.

It is about safety.

Open models allow:

• independent review of assumptions,
• verification of privacy boundaries,
• inspection of event definitions,
• substitution of components without lock‑in.

Without openness, accountability collapses into trust — and trust is not a control mechanism.

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Interoperability Preserves Human Agency

Aging‑in‑place unfolds over years, not product cycles.

Closed systems entrench dependency:

• a single vendor defines “normal,”
• a single model defines “risk,”
• a single interface defines “action.”

Object‑oriented, interoperable models allow:

• gradual evolution,
• mixed hardware environments,
• caregiver choice,
• graceful replacement rather than forced upgrades.

Interoperability is how agency survives time.

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Edge‑Primary Design Is a Moral Choice

Placing intelligence at the edge is often justified by latency or reliability.

In the home, it is also an ethical stance.

Edge‑primary systems:

• keep raw data local,
• minimize exposure,
• operate during outages,
• respect the home as a boundary.

Object‑oriented models make this feasible by allowing partial, local reasoning without global dependency.

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The OAII Position

The Open Autonomous Intelligence Initiative exists to advocate for AI systems that:

• are modular by construction,
• open to inspection and critique,
• interoperable across vendors and lifetimes,
• accountable to users and caregivers,
• respectful of privacy and dignity.

Aging‑in‑place is not a niche use case. It is a stress test.

If AI models cannot behave ethically in the home, they cannot be trusted anywhere else.

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This post introduces the ethical and architectural rationale behind the OAII Base Model and the use of aging‑in‑place event recognition as a reference domain. Subsequent posts will explore events, worlds, interoperability, and transparency in greater depth.