# Author Approval and Version Lock — HOAI-II Scholarly Public v2.2.1

**Date of author approval:** 2026-10-18
**Title:** Human Oversight and AI Interpretation Integrity: Independent Evidence, Human Autonomy, and the Conditional Value of Unforced Inquiry
**Disposition:** AUTHOR APPROVED, VERSION LOCKED FOR AUTHORIAL PUBLICATION PREPARATION.
**Peer-review status:** NOT PEER REVIEWED; independent qualified human scientific and information-hazard review remains outstanding.
**External deposition:** NOT PERFORMED by this package.

The author expressly approved the v2.2.1 candidate in conversation. This lock designates the PDF and DOCX inside the original `HOAI_II_Scholarly_Public_v2_2_1_Targeted_Correction_Package.zip` as the frozen authoritative byte pair. Their SHA-256 values appear in `SHA256SUMS.txt`.

**In-document status caveat:** The frozen manuscript still says `PUBLICATION CANDIDATE — AUTHOR APPROVAL PENDING` and retains candidate filenames. This describes its state before the author approved it. This subsequent dated and hashed lock record documents that the approval condition has now been satisfied. We deliberately have NOT silently edited the approved manuscript bytes or retroactively represented the original document as peer-reviewed. When distributing, include this approval record or reproduce an accurate publication-status statement on the hosting landing page.

**Artifact identity is not scientific validation:** Hashes prove file identity, not factual accuracy, operational safety, legal immunity, or efficacy of proposed safeguards.

**Version policy:** Never overwrite these exact approved bytes. Any content or in-document status changes require a separately versioned successor and new checksums. No live Archive, PhilPapers, Zenodo, GitHub, Arweave, or mirror has been changed here.