March 3, 2026Open Access

Nobody Is in Charge Anymore: Why modern systems fail at the moment responsibility matters most

Key Points

Continued action in autonomous systems occurs even when authority has fractured, leading to significant failures.
The Stable Authority Boundary is defined to determine when actions should cease, highlighting authority over performance.
Observational analysis emphasizes that the failure is rooted in authority, not in system efficiency or correctness.
Addressing this issue may enhance compliance and auditability in both distributed and autonomous systems.

Abstract

Broader work (full dissertation / SAB 2026):Authority, Refusal, and Resilience in Autonomous Systems — DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18431599 • Record + PDF: https://zenodo.org/records/18431599 We’ve optimized modern systems to continue—fast, resilient, and uninterrupted.What we haven’t consistently designed is the ability to stop. This essay explores a growing failure mode in large-scale systems: execution that persists after authority has fragmented or vanished. It introduces the Stable Authority Boundary, a strict definition for identifying when continued action is no longer legitimate, even though the system appears healthy. This is not a problem of performance or correctness.It is a problem of authority. Keywords: Stable Authority Boundary (SAB), design invariant, authority contraction, refusal, silence, resilience, decision boundary, engineering seams, autonomous systems, distributed systems, compliance, auditability. #EngineeringSeams #Authority #DecisionBoundaries #Refusal #Silence #Compliance #Auditability #DistributedSystems #AutonomousSystems

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