Constitution

Preamble

Vetted Inference exists to make the environmental and social costs of AI inference transparent, auditable, and actionable. This constitution sets out the governance principles that keep the project accountable to that mission.

Principles

1. Open methodology: All estimation methods, uncertainty models, and default coefficients are published and versioned. No black boxes.
2. Transparent tiers: The four-tier ladder is fixed by constitution. Tier definitions may only change via the methodology change protocol.
3. Contributor equity: Meaningful contributors receive decision-making weight proportionate to their contribution, not their capital.
4. No extraction: The project is steward-owned. Surplus is reinvested in research, infrastructure, or public goods. No private equity takeout.
5. Regulatory fidelity: Estimates are designed to satisfy CSRD/ESRS, EU AI Act, and ISO 14044. We do not optimise for marketing-friendly numbers.

Governance

• Technical council: Maintains the reference implementation and approves releases. Elected by active contributors.
• Methodology review board: Reviews proposed changes to tiers, pedigree mappings, and default coefficients. Meets quarterly.
• Stewardship council: Holds the steward-ownership structure, approves budget, and resolves conflicts of interest. Decisions require supermajority.

Methodology change protocol

1. Proposal published as a GitHub Discussion with 30-day comment period.
2. Methodology review board convenes to evaluate comments and revise.
3. Approved changes are merged, changelogged, and announced.
4. Emergency fixes require 72-hour notice and post-hoc review.

Licensing

The reference implementation is released under AGPL-3.0. Commercial use is permitted; proprietary forks must share their modifications. This ensures that improvements to the methodology remain public.

Amendments

Amendments to this constitution require approval by two-thirds of the stewardship council and a 14-day contributor comment period.