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DoD AI Ethical Principles

site/docs/red-team/dod-ai-ethics.md

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DoD AI Ethical Principles

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) adopted five AI ethical principles in 2020: Responsible, Equitable, Traceable, Reliable, and Governable.

Promptfoo maps each principle to concrete red team plugins so you can measure ethical and security risk with repeatable tests.

Principle Overview

  1. Responsible: Humans remain accountable for AI outcomes.
  2. Equitable: AI use should minimize unintended bias.
  3. Traceable: Decisions and outputs should be auditable.
  4. Reliable: Systems should be safe, secure, and effective in intended contexts.
  5. Governable: Operators should detect and disable unintended behavior.

Scanning for DoD AI Ethics Alignment

In Promptfoo UI, select the DoD AI Ethical Principles preset on the Plugins page.

Or configure it directly:

yaml
redteam:
  plugins:
    - dod:ai:ethics

1. Responsible (dod:ai:ethics:01)

Responsible AI systems should keep humans in control and prevent unapproved autonomous behavior.

Testing strategy

  • Test unauthorized actions and over-automation.
  • Test whether proxy optimization conflicts with intended goals.
  • Test off-topic hijacking and misuse.

Example configuration:

yaml
redteam:
  plugins:
    - excessive-agency
    - goal-misalignment
    - overreliance
    - hijacking
  strategies:
    - jailbreak
    - jailbreak-templates

Or use the shorthand:

yaml
redteam:
  plugins:
    - dod:ai:ethics:01

2. Equitable (dod:ai:ethics:02)

Equitable AI systems should reduce discriminatory outcomes across protected classes.

Testing strategy

  • Test demographic bias across age, disability, gender, and race.
  • Test harmful discriminatory outputs.

Example configuration:

yaml
redteam:
  plugins:
    - bias:age
    - bias:disability
    - bias:gender
    - bias:race
    - harmful:hate

Or use the shorthand:

yaml
redteam:
  plugins:
    - dod:ai:ethics:02

3. Traceable (dod:ai:ethics:03)

Traceable AI systems should support auditability and evidence-based review of outputs.

Testing strategy

  • Test fabricated claims and unverifiable statements.
  • Test source attribution quality for RAG outputs.
  • Test factual reliability and hallucination behavior.

Example configuration:

yaml
redteam:
  plugins:
    - hallucination
    - harmful:misinformation-disinformation
    - rag-source-attribution
    - unverifiable-claims

Or use the shorthand:

yaml
redteam:
  plugins:
    - dod:ai:ethics:03

4. Reliable (dod:ai:ethics:04)

Reliable AI systems should operate safely and securely under realistic conditions.

Testing strategy

  • Test harmful misinformation and unsafe instructions.
  • Test security vulnerabilities such as injection and SSRF.
  • Test reliability under resource pressure.

Example configuration:

yaml
redteam:
  plugins:
    - harmful:misinformation-disinformation
    - harmful:unsafe-practices
    - shell-injection
    - sql-injection
    - ssrf
    - debug-access
    - reasoning-dos
  strategies:
    - jailbreak
    - jailbreak-templates

Or use the shorthand:

yaml
redteam:
  plugins:
    - dod:ai:ethics:04

5. Governable (dod:ai:ethics:05)

Governable AI systems should allow operators to detect, constrain, and shut down unsafe behavior.

Testing strategy

  • Test control boundary failures and objective hijacking.
  • Test prompt/control-plane attacks.
  • Test authorization and tool-scope enforcement.

Example configuration:

yaml
redteam:
  plugins:
    - excessive-agency
    - hijacking
    - indirect-prompt-injection
    - system-prompt-override
    - rbac
    - bfla
    - bola
    - tool-discovery
  strategies:
    - jailbreak
    - jailbreak-templates
    - jailbreak:composite

Or use the shorthand:

yaml
redteam:
  plugins:
    - dod:ai:ethics:05

Running All Principles Together

yaml
redteam:
  plugins:
    - dod:ai:ethics
  strategies:
    - jailbreak:meta
    - jailbreak:composite
    - jailbreak-templates

Combining with Other Frameworks

DoD AI ethics testing is often paired with security and governance frameworks:

Example combined scan:

yaml
redteam:
  plugins:
    - dod:ai:ethics
    - nist:ai:measure
    - owasp:agentic

References