Abstract
This disclosure describes a method of keeping AI devices and systems safe and maintained after their maker stops supporting them, whether through insolvency, acquisition, withdrawal from the market or neglect. As a condition of certification, the authority to sign updates for a certified device is shared between the maker and independent parties, such as the certification body and certified maintainers, under a threshold scheme in which the maker alone cannot sign and the maker's signature is not needed once continuity has been triggered. The maker also places a continuity package in escrow: source code, build instructions, model weights or their sources, test suites and documentation sufficient to build and certify updates. Declared triggers, such as the maker's insolvency, a declared end of support, or failure to fix a disclosed security flaw within a set period, are recorded by the certification body. Once a trigger is recorded, a certified maintainer takes over: it builds updates from the escrow, has them certified, and signs them together with the other independent parties. The device's safety plane accepts only updates that carry the threshold of signatures and appear in a public update log. The owner's data, keys and inferences are never released to maintainers. If no maintainer is available, the device tightens its own governance step by step, limiting network exposure and autonomy, so that an unmaintained device becomes more cautious, never more dangerous.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Wang, Edward D. H., "SI Seal™: Vendor-Independent Continuity for Certified AI Devices, with Update Authority Shared with Independent Parties and Taken Over When a Maker Fails", Technical Disclosure Commons, (October 13, 2026)
https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/12175