If you’re interested in AI safety, especially as regards what may happen once superintelligence arrives, then knowing how close we are to its arrival is itself a safety question. 

That assessment, however, shouldn't rely on frontier-lab CEOs, all of whom have a clear conflict of interest.

Q16 PBC (the public benefit corporation behind Frontier Watch) is launching a quarterly, panel-based assessment of global AI capability built on independent expert judgment, published free. This is structured elicitation, aggregated across a panel of volunteers. As far as we know, it's the only quarterly, panel-based reading of its kind.

We're recruiting a small volunteer team for the Q3 2026 cycle. You can apply for one or more of the following roles - panelists, scouts, and writers:

• Panelists complete a short elicitation instrument once per quarter
• Scouts feed the evidence base between cycles: papers, incidents, policy changes, and capability demonstrations, posted with a line on why each matters
• Writers help turn panel synthesis into the published assessment

In terms of the time commitment, it might be a few hours per quarter for panelists, an hour or two a week for scouts and writers, concentrated in the two weeks after each quarter ends. The first full cycle runs October 1–31, with onboarding and a practice round in September. One eligibility note for panelists: we ask that you not be employed at any of the labs we assess.

Coordination happens on Buzz, an open-source collaboration platform from Block (desktop app; Mac, Windows, or Linux). Invites go out by email after a short exchange about your background and interests.

Interested? Write to [email protected] with a few lines about yourself and which role fits. Questions and criticism of the methodology are welcome in the comments.