Glossary

What is Guardrail?

Guardrail: Any control that keeps an AI system within safe limits.

An untested guardrail is not a guardrail; it is a hope. The hardest kind is the deterministic guardrail.

Updated October 2026

Source

The AI Flywheel, Ch 17

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Related terms

• Deterministic guardrail
• Autonomy boundary
• Kill switch