# AITH: A Post-Quantum Continuous Delegation Protocol for Human-AI Trust Establishment

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.07695 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.07695/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 1 of its 20 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 9 Apr 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Authenticated Delegation and Authorized AI Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.09674/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [MAGIQ: A Post-Quantum Multi-Agentic AI Governance System with Provable Security](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.06933/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The rapid deployment of AI agents acting autonomously on behalf of human principals has outpaced the development of cryptographic protocols for establishing, bounding, and revoking human-AI trust relationships. Existing frameworks (TLS, OAuth 2.0, Macaroons) assume deterministic software and cannot address probabilistic AI agents operating continuously within variable trust boundaries. We present AITH (AI Trust Handshake), a post-quantum continuous delegation protocol. AITH introduces: (1) a Continuous Delegation Certificate signed once with ML-DSA-87 (FIPS 204, NIST Level 5), replacing per-operation signing with sub-microsecond boundary checks at 4.7M ops/sec; (2) a six-check Boundary Engine enforcing hard constraints, rate limits, and escalation triggers with zero cryptographic overhead on the critical path; (3) a push-based Revocation Protocol propagating invalidation within one second. A three-tier SHA-256 Responsibility Chain provides tamper-evident audit logging. All five security theorems are machine-verified via Tamarin Prover under the Dolev-Yao model. We validate AITH through five rounds of multi-model adversarial auditing, resolving 12 vulnerabilities across four severity layers. Simulation of 100,000 operations shows 79.5% autonomous execution, 6.1% human escalation, and 14.4% blocked.