INTERNATIONAL OPEN LETTER On the Necessity of a Pre-Decision Constitutional Protocol for Humanity

This accepted manuscript is structurally governed by THE META-INDEX (Zenodo DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18169167). CORTICAL UNIVERSAL BIOS (C-UBIOS) is a civilizational manifesto proposing a pre-decision constitutional protocol for mitigating existential risks in high-stakes human and human–artificial intelligence decision-making. The framework addresses a fundamental asymmetry of the modern era: while technological power has become rapid, global, and irreversible, the neurobiological architecture of human decision-making remains vulnerable to subcortical reflex dominance under stress, urgency, and perceived existential threat. This mismatch amplifies the risk of catastrophic outcomes in domains such as nuclear command-and-control systems, autonomous technologies, large-scale digital infrastructures, and AI-assisted governance. C-UBIOS introduces a mandatory cognitive–ethical control layer positioned between decision and action. It does not evaluate the content of decisions, but instead assesses cognitive state, decision irreversibility, and long-term consequence profiles. Core principles include cognitive latency, rationalization barriers, multi-layer cortical oversight, strict limitation of artificial intelligence to non-decisional roles, and cognitive data minimalism. The protocol emphasizes consent-based legitimacy, constitutional compatibility, system fallibility, and strict boundary integrity to prevent technocratic overreach, surveillance misuse, or authority expansion. Artificial intelligence is explicitly constrained to simulation and scenario plurality functions, while responsibility for consequential decisions remains fully human and non-transferable. C-UBIOS is not a system of governance, control, or automation. It represents a form of species-level self-restraint, reframing pause, slowness, and plural deliberation as prerequisites for long-term civilizational survival in the age of irreversible technological power.