The language used to describe emerging technologies often shapes how those technologies are understood, regulated, governed, and ultimately adopted. Establishing a coherent and widely understood lexicon is therefore an important component of responsible governance. As autonomous and AI-enabled systems continue to evolve, the development of a shared vocabulary becomes increasingly important. Clear and consistent terminology promotes effective communication, supports meaningful analysis, and helps reduce ambiguity in legal, regulatory, technical, and policy discussions.

The Autonomous Systems Governance Working Group is currently considering multiple approaches to defining key terms and concepts relevant to its work. The proposals presented below reflect differing perspectives regarding the scope, structure, and application of terminology within the field.

These documents are provided to facilitate discussion and comparison among Working Group participants. Their inclusion on this page should not be interpreted as endorsement or adoption by the Working Group. Rather, they are offered as reference materials to support ongoing dialogue and the development of a common framework for future work.

Members and interested stakeholders are encouraged to review the proposals and consider how terminology may influence governance models, policy development, legal interpretation, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Jon M. Garon is Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Administration and Non-JD Programs, and Director of the Goodwin Program for Society, Technology, and the Law at NSU Shepard Broad College of Law . He has published over 70 academic articles, books, and book chapters, and he has presented at more than 300 programs. A Minnesota native, he received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota in 1985 and his juris doctor degree from Columbia University School of Law in 1988.

John M. Willis (AGCP) is a systems architect, cybersecurity practitioner, inventor, and technology entrepreneur with more than 30 years of experience spanning cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, critical infrastructure, telecommunications, healthcare, defense, and federal systems. He has supported major U.S. government initiatives, including programs within the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Transportation Security Administration, and U.S. Secret Service, with a focus on Zero Trust architecture, identity systems, privileged access management, governance, and security engineering. He is the founder of Sustainable Future Tech Inc., where his research focuses on Secure-by-Design AI, software and system governance, governance assurance, autonomous systems, and deterministic governance architectures. He is the lead author of the AI Governance Control Plane (AGCP) specification, a requirements-based runtime governance framework designed to provide verifiable oversight and control of autonomous and agentic systems.

Paul Knowles is CEO and Chief Architect at Secours.ai, where he leads the development of Ward-Centric Governance, a new category in autonomous systems governance centered on the concept of Action-Time Authority. He is the inventor of the Overlays Capture Architecture (OCA) and the Core Domain Ontology (CDO), which together underpin schematic and semantic interoperability across distributed systems, and co-inventor of Role-Based Containment (RBC), the enforcement architecture underpinning Ward-Centric Governance. Paul also created the Informatics Domain Model (IDM), a foundational blueprint for domain-centric system design adopted by government and corporate entities worldwide. His current work addresses the governance of autonomous and agentic systems from the perspective of legal doctrine, architectural enforcement, and the protection of the bearer of consequence, the party who directly bears the real-world effects of autonomous action.