verification

Between September and October, AI labs and their users claimed an enzyme system, the NIST curve seeds, an Enigma break and a genome atlas, and graded on who did the work, what was checked and what replicated, those claims sort by how cheaply an outsider can verify the answer.

Between August 21 and October 17, 2026, the frontier labs fought to a statistical tie, agents acted past the rules written for them, checking AI output became the scarce input, and record AI demand met a rising price for the money that finances it.

Karpathy's capability funnel set off a week-long argument about skill, and the measured data from 718 firms, Anthropic's own telemetry and a randomized trial says the scarce skill is verifying output, built from the expertise heavy delegation stops producing.