Concept Explainer · Human Agency Policy Framework
Corrective continuity, explained
A concise reference for readers who want the core distinctions without reading the full paper.
What is corrective continuity?
The capacity of a valid correction to remain effective across the decision and consequence pathways through which superseded state would otherwise continue to affect a person over time. A correction can be perfectly valid at its source and still fail to be corrective, if the decisions and consequences it already produced keep operating unchanged.
What is the Consequence Revalidation Framework?
A seven-stage institutional architecture: Correction → Dependency → Provenance → Participation → Revalidation → Remedy → Closure. It is triggered by a material correction, withdrawal, supersession, or invalidation where a still-operative consequence exists with a plausible path of material dependency — not by every event that happened to follow a correction chronologically.
What are the four forms of dependency?
Necessary — the consequence could not have been sustained without the superseded state. Contributory — the state materially affected the decision but wasn't the sole basis. Incidental — the state was present but didn't materially affect the outcome. Indeterminate — available evidence is insufficient to determine its role. These categories exist specifically to prevent both indiscriminate reopening of every corrected fact and treating uncertainty as if it proved the correction didn't matter.
How is this different from the companion research paper?
This is the policy paper (SSRN 7509878). A separate research paper, Human Agency Under Consequential State (SSRN 7496758), develops a different, empirically-tested framework (OD-HAS, with Rule A/B and two public-record pilots). The two share a title and a general subject but use entirely separate vocabularies and evidence — this policy paper does not rely on the research paper's empirical apparatus.
What is actually claimed?
- That correction and revalidation are conceptually distinct acts, and collapsing them into one produces either indiscriminate reopening or unjustified permanence.
- That existing regimes (EU AI Act, GDPR, U.S. administrative reconsideration doctrine) already supply component pieces of this problem, which the framework connects around one object: the continuing authority of consequences produced from superseded state.
- That the central rule — correction should trigger revalidation, not automatic reversal — is workable at scale because the trigger is deliberately narrow.
What remains unproven?
The paper directly engages, without fully resolving, whether revalidation duties could discourage correction, how meaningful participation interacts with trade-secret and confidentiality interests, and whether the framework is workable for very high-volume, low-visibility consequential systems. No new empirical results are reported.
Where can readers go deeper?
The canonical paper record · Research brief · The Consequence Revalidation lifecycle map · Companion research paper (OD-HAS) · For Policy & Think Tanks · Consequence
Preble, Micheal Charles. “Human Agency Under Consequential State: A Policy Framework for Correction, Revalidation, and Recoverable Consequences” Manuscript v4, September 2026. SSRN 7509878, submitted to SSRN, 2026.