Document Name: Pancakes Safety Cases Framework
Document Type: Ecosystem Governance Standard
Status: Foundational
Purpose: Define the Pancakes safety case model, establish safety cases as the primary mechanism for demonstrating system safety and trustworthiness, and provide a framework for applying safety cases across the Pancakes ecosystem.
Related Documents:
The Pancakes ecosystem includes:
Many of these systems operate in domains where traditional software standards alone are insufficient to demonstrate safety.
Compliance with standards does not automatically imply safety.
Accordingly, Pancakes adopts a safety case approach.
Safety cases provide structured arguments explaining why a system should be considered acceptably safe, trustworthy, and aligned with ecosystem governance requirements.
The purpose of a safety case is not to prove that a system is risk-free.
No system is risk-free.
The purpose of a safety case is to demonstrate:
Known Hazards
+
Risk Controls
+
Supporting Evidence
+
Governance Controls
=
Acceptable Residual Risk
within the intended context of use.
Standards and safety cases serve different purposes.
Standards define:
Examples:
Safety cases define:
A project may comply with every applicable standard and still fail its safety case.
Likewise, a safety case must demonstrate how standards compliance contributes to safety.
The hierarchy is:
Pancakes Charter
↓
Pancakes Standards Model
↓
Standards Applicability Profile
↓
Applicable Standards
↓
Applicable Safety Cases
↓
Project Risk Management
↓
Design & Operational Controls
Safety cases bridge governance and implementation.
Pancakes defines safety primarily in terms of human outcomes rather than technical components.
Safety cases shall generally focus on:
rather than technologies.
For example:
Preferred:
Cognitive Privacy
Child Stewardship
Economic Participation
Reproductive Privacy
Discouraged:
Database Safety
API Safety
LLM Safety
Technical controls may support safety claims, but the safety case should be framed around the human risk being addressed.
All Pancakes safety cases shall contain the following elements.
A clear statement describing the desired safety outcome.
Example:
Users can maintain private cognitive space without inappropriate disclosure.
Description of relevant hazards.
Examples:
Explanation of why the system is believed to be safe.
Arguments may reference:
Evidence supporting the argument.
Examples:
Description of remaining risks.
Residual risk shall be:
Residual risk shall never be ignored.
Safety cases shall define:
Safety cases are living documents.
They shall be:
Safety cases shall not be treated as static certification artifacts.
Projects activate safety cases through the Standards Applicability Profile.
Each project shall identify:
The Pancakes ecosystem organizes safety cases into domains.
Examples include:
Protect individual agency and cognitive freedom.
Protect children while preserving appropriate autonomy.
Protect users from health-related harms.
Protect participants from financial exploitation and coercion.
Protect fairness, participation rights, and community stewardship.
Protect users from unsafe AI behavior and inappropriate automation.
Protect users operating systems in uncontrolled environments.
Protect users from manipulation arising from symbolic or ambient environments.
These categories are illustrative rather than exhaustive.
Safety cases are selected through project characteristics.
For example:
Project Characteristics
↓
Applicable Extensions
↓
Applicable Safety Cases
Example:
Red Witch
May activate:
Example:
Household Mentor Assistant
May activate:
Example:
Bitcoin Reward System
May activate:
Projects demonstrate safety case conformance by:
A project is considered conformant when all applicable safety cases have been satisfactorily addressed.
Safety cases shall be reviewed:
Additional reviews may be required by applicable standards or governance policies.
Safety cases should remain stable even when technologies change.
For example:
A Cognitive Privacy Safety Case should remain applicable whether the system uses:
The safety objective remains the same even if implementation changes.
This allows governance to evolve independently from technology.
Pancakes shall treat safety as a property of human outcomes rather than technical mechanisms.
The ecosystem shall therefore evaluate safety primarily through domain-specific safety cases that identify hazards, justify controls, document evidence, and establish acceptable residual risk.
Safety cases provide the primary mechanism by which Pancakes projects demonstrate trustworthiness, accountability, and alignment with the Pancakes Charter of Rights and Freedoms.