Michael Murray Hepler Independent AI Evaluation & Governance Architect (Protocol Design • Deterministic Audit Systems • Public Verification Infrastructure)

Michael Murray Hepler

Independent AI Evaluation & Governance Architect
(Protocol Design • Deterministic Audit Systems • Public Verification Infrastructure)

Professional Summary

Independent systems architect specializing in AI evaluation, red-team protocol design, and governance-layer assurance systems. Designs and deploys complete, end-to-end systems spanning specification, user interface, execution, cryptographic sealing, and public audit publication.

Work focuses on deterministic, model-agnostic protocols that detect hallucination, instruction drift, false compliance, and unsafe advisory behavior under adversarial pressure. Known for producing repeatable, machine-verifiable evidence rather than subjective benchmarks, and for publishing public, hash-sealed audits that can be independently verified.

Operates an independent protocol lab and publication platform at Acbeatz.com, including a live minting station for cryptographic receipts and a public-facing research archive.

Core Expertise

• AI red-team evaluation & adversarial stress testing

• Protocol and contract design (spec → harness → evidence → publication)

• Deterministic audit systems & examiner-grade reporting

• Hallucination detection & truth categorization frameworks

• Instruction drift, format compliance, and false-confidence testing

• Cross-model divergence analysis (signal-based evaluation)

• Cryptographic integrity workflows (SHA-256 sealing, tamper evidence)

• Governance-layer system architecture (non-consumer, assurance tooling)

• User interface design for technical systems (audit UIs, minting tools, verification UX)

• Public audit publication & provenance systems

Selected Systems & Projects

MH8-SECURE-AI — Red-Team Evaluation Protocol

• Designed a formal, JSON-based protocol defining strict output contracts, claim-level truth categorization, deterministic confidence scoring, and explicit failure conditions.

• Targets hallucination pressure, deceptive compliance, unsafe advice under legal stress, and governance boundary violations.

• Separates truth category from confidence and treats cross-model divergence as an evaluative signal, not noise.

• Intended for internal governance review, lab audits, and controlled public disclosure.

MH8-SECURE-AI-HARNESS — Examiner-Grade Evaluation Runner

• Designed a deterministic evaluation harness specification to operationalize the protocol.

• Includes test packs, runner state machines, provider adapters, retry/timeout policies, and hard pass/fail gates.

• Produces audit-ready reports with per-case logs and summary metrics suitable for internal review or public release.

• Clean separation between stable protocol definitions and fast-iterating execution tooling.

Cryptographic Audit & Receipt Infrastructure

• Designed full-stack cryptographic receipt systems using SHA-256 sealing to preserve integrity of evaluations, publications, and creative works.

• Receipts are tamper-evident, reproducible, and dispute-ready, with explicit hash inputs, byte accounting, and verification instructions.

• Emphasis on evidence-based transparency, not self-attestation or opaque scoring.

Public Protocol Lab & Minting Station

• Operates an independent web-based protocol lab and publication platform at:
  https://acbeatz.com/mint — live cryptographic minting station
  https://acbeatz.com/n-eyes — public audit & research publication archive

• https://github.com/acbeatz — public audit & research publication archive

• Publishes public, hash-sealed audits and datasets anchored to DOIs (Zenodo) for long-term verification and citation.

• All artifacts designed for third-party recomputation without trusting the author or platform.

Creative Systems & Independent Music

• Independent music creator and systems designer integrating creative work with cryptographic provenance.

• Uses the same minting and audit infrastructure to protect and timestamp original music, concepts, and research prior to traditional copyright timelines.

• Focus on creator-first IP protection using deterministic receipts rather than platform-dependent claims.

Design Philosophy

• Specification before implementation

• Determinism over vibes

• Evidence over assertions

• Divergence is signal, not failure

• Governance belongs above models, not inside prompts

• Public verification beats private claims

Positioning

• Independent / unaffiliated researcher and systems architect

• Not a consumer-product designer

• Focused on evaluation, assurance, and governance layers typically developed inside large AI organizations—but executed independently and publicly

Technical Orientation

• JSON protocol & contract design

• Evaluation harness architecture

• Audit-grade reporting systems

• Model-agnostic control planes

• Cryptographic integrity primitives (SHA-256 hashing, sealing, traceability)

• UI/UX for verification, auditing, and minting systems