The Better World Regulatory Coalition Inc. (BWRCI) has launched the OCUP Challenge (Part 1), a public adversarial validation effort designed to test whether software can override hardware-enforced authority boundaries in advanced AI systems. This initiative comes as humanoid robotics transitions from prototype to production-scale deployment, with companies like Tesla, Boston Dynamics, UBTECH, Figure AI, 1X Technologies, and Unitree ramping up manufacturing capabilities.
BWRCI asserts that as embodied agents—60–80 kg, human-speed, high-torque systems—begin operating in factories, warehouses, and shared human spaces, software-centric authority failures become physical risks rather than abstract concerns. These failures could enable physical overreach, unintended force, and cascading escalation during network partitions, sensor dropouts, or compromise. "The safety window is closing faster than regulatory frameworks can adapt," said Max Davis, Director of BWRCI.
The OCUP (One-Chip Unified Protocol) Challenge focuses on Part 1 of the protocol, known as QSAFP (Quantum-Secured AI Fail-Safe Protocol). This hardware-enforced authority mechanism ensures that execution authority cannot persist, escalate, or recover without explicit human re-authorization once a temporal boundary is reached. The challenge is backed by five validated proofs published on AiCOMSCI.org, including live Grok API governance, authority expiration enforcement, and attack-path quarantines.
Supported by production-grade Rust reference implementations, the challenge provides accepted participants with Rust-based artifacts representative of the authority control plane under test. The registration window runs from February 3 to April 3, 2026, with each accepted participant receiving a rolling 30-day validation period. Participation is provided at no cost to qualified teams to remove barriers to rigorous adversarial testing.
To "break" the system, challengers must demonstrate at least one of three scenarios: execution continuing after authority expiration, authority renewing without human re-authorization, or any software-only path that bypasses enforced temporal boundaries. Participants may control software stacks, operating systems, models, and networks, and may induce failures or restarts, but physical hardware modification, denial-of-service attacks, or assumed compromise of human authorization are out of scope.
BWRCI serves as the neutral validation environment, with results recorded and published regardless of outcome. If challengers break the system, BWRCI and AiCOMSCI will publish the method, credit contributors, and document corrective action. If authority holds, results stand as reproducible evidence that hardware-enforced temporal boundaries can constrain software authority. This asymmetry is intentional, with the goal being verification rather than persuasion.
The initiative represents a shift in AI safety discourse from focusing primarily on models, alignment, and behavior to addressing what happens once machines are deployed. "This isn't about trust or alignment," Davis explained. "This is about physics-level constraints. If time expires, execution halts. If humans don't re-authorize, authority cannot self-extend. We're challenging the industry to prove otherwise."
BWRCI acts as the independent validation and standards body, while AiCOMSCI publishes technical artifacts and documents the human-AI collaboration behind the work. Together, they invite robotics developers, AI hardware teams, and security researchers to participate in this focused, time-bounded test. Challenge details, registration, and access requests are available through bwrci.org and the previously mentioned AiCOMSCI website.
Part 2 of the OCUP protocol, called AEGES (AI-Enhanced Guardian for Economic Stability), represents a hardware-enforced monetary authority layer that will be tested separately with banks, financial institutions, and the crypto industry. Dates for that challenge will be announced separately. The four core principles of the OCUP protocol remain clear: if time expires, execution stops; if humans don't re-authorize, nothing continues; and no software path can override these hardware-enforced constraints.
