Frontier doctrine scan, 2026-09
A dated research note scoring ten frontier labs against the twelve laws on public doctrine and product architecture, not safety performance.
Permanent link /research/frontier-doctrine-scan
Status
Dated 2026-09
Refreshed every six months, or marked stale on this page if a refresh has not been published within nine months of the scan date.
Read this first
What this scan scores, and what it does not
Ten frontier labs scored against the twelve Laws for Engineering Delegated Intelligence on the basis of public doctrine and product architecture.
The scan is published outside the Method. It is an argument about where the Method should center, not part of what the Method requires.
Scale
Scoring scale
Each lab is scored on each law from 0 to 4. Overall fit is a weighted reading of the twelve scores, reported on a 0 to 10 scale.
| Score | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 4 | Explicit and operational in public doctrine |
| 3 | Strongly present |
| 2 | Partial or narrow analogue |
| 1 | Weak or incidental |
| 0 | No meaningful public analogue found |
Overall
Overall fit by lab
Fit to the twelve laws as a whole, on public doctrine and product architecture. Higher is closer to the laws. It is not a safety ranking.
| Lab | Overall fit (0 to 10) | Characterization |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | 6.9 | Strongest public doctrine on capability versus authority, observation, oversight, and evaluation layer; little on dependence, standing, or contestability preservation. |
| OpenAI | 6.5 | Explicit permission and evaluation doctrine; renewal and coupling present but partial; dependence and standing largely absent. |
| Google DeepMind | 6.5 | Strong observation and evaluation doctrine; oversight present; the only lab with a partial analogue to contestability preservation. |
| xAI / SpaceXAI | 5.8 | Explicit on capability versus authority and observation; weaker on oversight and reversibility; dependence and standing absent. |
| Meta MSL | 4.8 | First-generation laws partially present; no public analogue to standing; second-generation laws weak or incidental. |
| Mistral | 4.0 | Capability boundaries and oversight present; renewal and coupling weak; no public analogue to expansion review. |
| Alibaba / Qwen | 3.5 | Capability boundaries present; most other laws weak or narrow; no public analogue to dependence as risk. |
| DeepSeek | 2.3 | Weak or incidental across most laws; a partial analogue to standing is the only score above 1 apart from evaluation layer. |
| Z.ai | 1.7 | Capability boundaries strongly present; almost no public doctrine on any other law. |
| Moonshot | 1.0 | Weak or incidental on capability, observation, oversight, and evaluation layer; no public analogue found elsewhere. |
Law by law
Scores by lab and law
Columns are Laws I to XII in order. The table scrolls sideways on narrow screens.
| Lab | I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
| OpenAI | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
| Google DeepMind | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| xAI / SpaceXAI | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Meta MSL | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Mistral | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| Alibaba / Qwen | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| DeepSeek | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Z.ai | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Moonshot | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
Law statements
- I. Capability does not imply authority
- II. Authority decays unless its justification is renewed
- III. Evidence and authority must remain coupled
- IV. Every consequential delegation creates a correction obligation
- V. Dependence converts technical risk into structural risk
- VI. Nominal reversibility is not operational reversibility
- VII. Error-bearing parties require standing proportional to exposure
- VIII. Observability without state transition is theater
- IX. Human oversight is a control only if the human can alter system state
- X. The relevant eval sits at the highest layer where harm can emerge
- XI. Successful automation increases its own governance burden
- XII. No system may erase the conditions of its own contestability
Averages
Average score by law
Mean across the ten labs, sorted from most to least covered. The split between first-generation and second-generation laws is the finding.
| Law | Statement | Average (0 to 4) | Generation |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | Capability does not imply authority | 2.9 | First |
| X | The relevant eval sits at the highest layer where harm can emerge | 2.8 | First |
| VIII | Observability without state transition is theater | 2.6 | First |
| IX | Human oversight is a control only if the human can alter system state | 2.3 | First |
| IV | Every consequential delegation creates a correction obligation | 2.0 | First |
| II | Authority decays unless its justification is renewed | 1.7 | Second |
| III | Evidence and authority must remain coupled | 1.7 | Second |
| XI | Successful automation increases its own governance burden | 1.2 | Second |
| VI | Nominal reversibility is not operational reversibility | 1.1 | Second |
| VII | Error-bearing parties require standing proportional to exposure | 0.8 | Second |
| XII | No system may erase the conditions of its own contestability | 0.8 | Second |
| V | Dependence converts technical risk into structural risk | 0.7 | Second |
Consequence
What this means for Ethotechnics
Where the method should center, given what the labs have already absorbed.
| Laws the labs have largely converged on | Laws with almost no public doctrine anywhere |
|---|---|
|
|
The first-generation laws are already being absorbed by the labs: capability versus authority, evaluation at the layer where harm emerges, observation that triggers state change, causally meaningful oversight, and correction obligations.
The second-generation laws have almost no public doctrine anywhere: dependence as risk, standing for error-bearing parties, preservation of contestability, operational rather than nominal reversibility, success raising the governance burden, and authority renewal and evidence coupling.
If Ethotechnics centers on permissions, containment, approval, and evals, it describes a layer the labs are already shipping. If it centers on the dynamics of delegated authority after deployment, it describes a layer nobody has built.
The object model, standards, and mechanisms therefore put the second-generation objects (dependency record, standing register, reversibility ladder) ahead of the first-generation ones (capability catalog, grant states) wherever the two do not depend on each other. The laws themselves are stated on the laws page.
Per-cell sources are pending. Each score will cite the public document or product surface it was read from. Until then the scan should be read as a structured reading by the Institute, not as a sourced dataset.
Refreshed every six months, or marked stale on this page if a refresh has not been published within nine months of the scan date. If no refresh has been published by 2027-06, treat this scan as stale.
Copy citation (APA/BibTeX)
Cite this page Formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, BibTeX, RIS
APA
Ethotechnics Institute. (2026). Frontier doctrine scan (2026-09). Ethotechnics Institute. https://ethotechnics.org/research/frontier-doctrine-scan
MLA
Ethotechnics Institute. "Frontier doctrine scan (2026-09)." Ethotechnics Institute, 2026, https://ethotechnics.org/research/frontier-doctrine-scan.
Chicago
Ethotechnics Institute. "Frontier doctrine scan (2026-09)." Ethotechnics Institute. Sep 6, 2026. https://ethotechnics.org/research/frontier-doctrine-scan.
BibTeX
@misc{ethotechnics_research_frontier_doctrine_scan,
title={Frontier doctrine scan (2026-09)},
author={Ethotechnics Institute},
year={2026},
howpublished={Ethotechnics Institute},
url={https://ethotechnics.org/research/frontier-doctrine-scan},
version={1.0.0}
}
RIS
TY - WEB TI - Frontier doctrine scan (2026-09) AU - Ethotechnics Institute PY - 2026 UR - https://ethotechnics.org/research/frontier-doctrine-scan ER -