Abstract
Artificial intelligence systems capable of reasoning, autonomous decision-making, and large-scale societal influence are advancing at a pace that exceeds existing mechanisms of human oversight and control. In this growing governance gap, fragmented regulation, opaque internal auditing, and insufficient safety enforcement expose modern societies to risks that are not merely technological, but civilizational. The Sentinel System proposes a new paradigm for AI governance: not a policy, not a model, and not a content filter, but an independent global infrastructure for real-time oversight of advanced artificial intelligence systems. Sentinel is a multilayer framework integrating behavioral inspection, cryptographic auditing, anomaly detection, ethical enforcement, legal certification, and a secure external kill switch, operating as a neutral supervisory layer above any AI model, agent, or pipeline. Unlike prior approaches limited to guidelines or post hoc audits, Sentinel enables continuous monitoring, verifiable accountability, active intervention, and automated compliance with major regulatory frameworks, including the European AI Act. It represents a technical, institutional, and normative architecture of trust designed to ensure that advanced AI systems remain transparent, governable, and aligned with human values. This paper presents the conceptual and institutional foundations of the Sentinel System, outlining its architecture, governance model, and strategic role as a universal safety infrastructure for the age of intelligent machines. No experimental results are included at this stage.
