Soma
The Standard of Care

Four duties an automated decision inherits.

When a decision about a person's life passes to a machine, the duty of care that always travelled with that decision does not disappear. It is owed by whoever now holds the decision. These are the four obligations it carries.

Before the four

A standard of care is the level of attention a competent, conscientious practitioner owes the person their decision will affect. It has always existed for the one with the least power in the exchange — not for the institution.

The duty attaches to the decision, not to the hands that make it. So when a model takes over the deciding, the standard does not switch off — it transfers. Soma states it in four parts so that a system, and the people accountable for it, can be held to something specific.

Duty i

Competence

First, do no harm

The decision must meet a real standard — sound, current, and fit for the person it concerns — not merely whatever the model returned.

A system inherits the obligation to decide at least as carefully as a conscientious person would. Accuracy in aggregate is not enough; the duty is owed to each individual the decision lands on. A system that decides worse than a careful human is not a tool — it is a hazard that was chosen, and choosing it is itself a breach.

The testWould a careful professional, in full view of this person's case, stand behind the decision?
Duty ii

Candor

Informed consent

The person has a right to know that a machine decided, and to understand the grounds in terms they can act on.

Disclosure is owed to the person affected — not only to an auditor or a regulator. It must be legible: a reason they can understand and respond to, not a notice buried in terms. "Proprietary" is not an answer a person is owed about a decision that shaped their life. Care that hides itself from the cared-for is not care.

The testDoes the person know a machine decided — and enough of why to do something about it?
Duty iii

Recourse

The second opinion

Every automated decision needs a door back to a human with the authority to look again, and to overturn.

Review must be real, not decorative: reachable without exhausting the person, and held by someone empowered to change the outcome. The right to a second look is among the oldest protections in both care and law. A decision no one can revisit has not been governed — it has only been imposed.

The testCan the person reach a human who is able, and permitted, to reverse it?
Duty iv

Non-abandonment

Continuity of care

One does not deploy and walk away. The duty continues for as long as the system decides.

Care does not end at launch. The obligation is ongoing: to watch for the person the system begins to harm, to notice drift and disparate effect as they emerge, and to reach those affected before the harm compounds. Abandonment — deploying and turning away — is a breach even when each individual decision looked defensible.

The testWhen the system begins to harm someone, who notices — and how fast do they reach them?
Where these come from

Drawn from the duty-of-care tradition in medicine and law.

These four are not invented from nothing, and Soma does not claim them as an established or official framework. They are a considered adaptation — drawn from the way medicine and law have long organised the care a professional owes a vulnerable person, and translated for systems that now decide at scale.

Each duty has a recognisable ancestor in professional ethics. Soma's contribution is to carry them across — from a practitioner caring for one person, to an automated system deciding for many — and to state them plainly enough to be held to.

  • Competencethe professional standard of care and "first, do no harm" — the duty to perform to a real standard.
  • Candorthe duty of candour and informed consent — disclosure owed to the person, in terms they can use.
  • Recoursethe right to review and the second opinion — long-held in both care and law.
  • Non-abandonmentthe duty of non-abandonment and continuity of care — a named obligation in medical ethics.
How to refer to it

A standard becomes real by being cited. This is its fixed address.

The Soma Standard of Care proposes four duties an automated decision inherits — competence, candor, recourse, and non-abandonment — drawn from the duty-of-care tradition in medicine and law.