Governing the Autonomous.
The EU AI Act and SEC 17a-4 are colliding with autonomous agents. How to implement "Human-in-the-Loop" without killing latency.
The "Kill Switch" Mandate
Regulators (EU AI Act Art. 14) demand that human oversight must be technically capable of intervening. If an AI agent goes "rogue" (e.g., infinite loop buying), a human must be able to pull the plug.
However, if the agent is in a TEE, who holds the plug?
ZeroCopy implements a Cryptographic Kill Switch. The Enclave policy includes a ForceExit condition signed by a Compliance Key.
Interactive Kill Switch
Simulate a trading agent going rogue and engaging the kill switch.
SEC 15c3-5 (Market Access Rule): Broker-dealers must have "direct and exclusive control" over financial risk management controls. A decentralized AI agent with no off-switch is non-compliant by definition.
EU AI Act Risk Classification
Not all AI is treated equal. The EU AI Act categorizes systems by risk. Most trading agents fall under High Risk due to "Critical Infrastructure" or "Financial Systems" adjacency.
LIMITED RISK
Transparency Obligations Only.
- User Notification
- Content Labeling
The Conflict Zone
There is a fundamental tension between Client Benefit (Best Execution, Privacy) and Firm Profit (Internalization, Data Mining). Regulators exist in this conflict zone.
Regulatory Stringency by Domain
Conflict Zone Visualization
Best Practices for 2026 Compliance
- Immutable Logs: Write all state transitions to a tamper-proof ledger (or TEE-signed log).
- Explainability: Can you re-run the model deterministically to prove why it bought at $69,420? (ZeroCopy's determinism enables this).
- Human Overrides: Always maintain a priority channel for human intervention that bypasses the agent's logic queue.