Final debrief

Week 12 — co-taught, the Capstone is due

Not a recital

This isn’t a list of things you memorised. It’s one method, and today is the first time you see all of it end to end.

The method, in the order it was built

  1. Observe under protocol — week 1
  2. Classify, non-exclusively, against four categories — week 2
  3. Read a countermeasure as a falsifiable claim — week 3
  4. Apply it under the safety protocol — week 4
  5. Write the case up so a second observer could act on it — weeks 5–6

The method, continued

  1. Source and compare against a wider corpus — weeks 7–9
  2. Weigh it against a framework honestly, including where the framework doesn’t fit — weeks 10–11
  3. Design a protocol for a case nobody in this course has observed — this week

The Capstone was never a new skill

Every step above, once, on a case you build yourself.

Idea seeds — starting points, not templates

  • A handoff procedure for a case whose only failure mode is a lapse in observation
  • A containment question for an anomaly that spreads by being copied, not by staying in one place
  • A protocol for acting safely on a case with no single agreed account of itself

Picking one still means designing it.

More idea seeds

  • A monitoring-only protocol for a case with no active countermeasure, only a detection threshold
  • A single protocol combining two independently-sourced week-3 traditions, justified, including where it might not transfer
  • A protocol for handling documentation itself as the hazard: who reviews it, how it’s stored, whether watching counts as fieldwork

What you actually have to trace

Not “did you use material from every week.” One specific piece: a classification category, a named countermeasure mechanism, a safety rule that your design would break without.

A design task that uses every prior skill, not a new one.

Your position on week 11, stated plainly

Whether and how the current leading framework shaped your protocol: an open position, argued, not a hidden assumption carried in unexamined.

After this

The Final Capstone is due this week. No further submission follows it.