Wireframe News · the instrument
pace of arrival ÷ capacity to absorb. 1.0 is the line.
AS OF 2026-08-09 · TREND RISING · METHOD v1.2 · THE LINE IS 1.0
How the number is made
The published reading is editorial, within a declared band. The computed core is 0.582; the published number adds +0.118, inside the ±0.15 band (in band). That adjustment is a judgment, it is disclosed here every time it is made, and it is the reason this page exists rather than a number in a footer.
Core 0.582 + 0.118 editorial (within the ±0.15 band). The adjustment is upward for one stated reason: THREE OF THE FOUR TRACKS EXCLUDED FROM THE CORE ARE WEAK BRAKES (federal preemption - directional and weakening; public will - plateaued since 2023; deployment/automation - no current figure). Excluding weak brakes raises the computed brake mean and therefore suppresses the core; a fuller accounting would read higher. Secondary: the Black Hat agent-collective evidence is a capability datapoint the core cannot express (no clean %). Rounded 0.68 -> 0.7.
Accelerants — push the Index up
| Capability horizon doubling · 2.2× faster | ~3 mo | METR Frontier Risk Report — ~16–20 hr task horizon 2026-05-19 |
| Benchmarks frontier tests · above 90% | 3 of 6 | |
| Compute training FLOP · since 2020 | ~5×/yr | Epoch: frontier training compute ~4–5×/yr 2026 |
| Chips Nvidia DC · FY26 · +68% | $193.7B | Nvidia Q1 FY27: $75.2B DC rev/qtr (~$300B run-rate) 2026-05 |
| Capex 2026 guided · ~1.9× | $700B+ | ~$700B+ hyperscaler AI capex guided for 2026 (each company's own latest guidance through 2026-07-22); ~1.9x YoY 2026 |
| Self-improvement Anthropic code merged · Google 75% | >80% | Anthropic CFO: 90%+ of code written by Claude 2026-05 |
| Concentration US VC share · from 65% | 86% | PitchBook: ~86% of US VC → AI (H1 2026) 2026-07 |
Brakes — hold the Index down
| Safety grades FLI 4th ed. · falling | C+ → F | FLI AI Safety Index: top grade C+, leaders sliding. FLI AI Safety Index 4th edition (pub. ~2026-07-07); best existential-safety grade is D+, not 'none above D'. 2026-07-07 |
| Regulation 2025 state bills enacted | ~12% | ~145 of ~1,200 state AI bills enacted (~12%) 2026 |
| EU rules GPAI fines Aug '26 · high-risk → Dec '27 | split | Reg. (EU) 2026/1744 (Digital Omnibus on AI) published in the OJ; in force 2026-07-27. Defers AI Act high-risk obligations: Annex III Aug 2026 → 2 Dec 2027; Annex I Aug 2027 → 2 Aug 2028. 2026-07-24 |
| Lab restraint labs · stated slowdown | 1 of 5 | OpenAI @ Black Hat: 'consciously slowing down research to enhance security' 2026-08-06 |
What is deliberately off the Index
Four tracks are off the Index on purpose: humanoid robots (no unit count disclosed; target withdrawn), automation share (metric discontinued in June), federal preemption (no defensible measured effect), and public opinion (flat since 2023). Three are weak brakes — excluding them pushes the number DOWN, against our own argument.
Restatements
The full track cards → every driver and brake, sourced
The method → anchors, weights, exclusions, downward triggers
The daily → where the events that move it get caught
The Index moves only on a named, cited event. It is reviewed weekly and restated no more than
monthly; a review that changes nothing is published as changing nothing, because the honest
cadence is part of the instrument. This page is generated from the same state file the
computation reads — if it disagrees with the method page, the method page wins and this is a bug.
Generated by ops/brief-pipeline/tools/build_index_page.py. Do not hand-edit.