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Carry the Lantern.
Diogenes searched Athens with a lamp for one honest person. We build the tools that check AI for honesty, and each month our Lantern goes to the largest single gift that funds them. Ada Kowalczyk carries it now. On 1 November it passes to whoever leads October.On 1 November it passes to October's keeper.
Closes Sat 31 Oct, 23:59:59 UTC
The October race is closed. The winner is announced 1 November.
Any gift by 31 Oct enters October's Spark draw, 1 in 215.October's Spark is drawn 1 Nov from all 214 October donors. Two of the three honors can go to a $5 donor.
For the largest single gift of September, $3,200, to the AI honesty lab no AI company can buy.
- repocalibration run kowalczyk-2026-09
- receiptsignedverifies offline
- rollline VI, permanent
“I want benchmark scores I can actually believe. This is the only lab I've seen publish its own failures first.”
Why the Lantern matters
The world is deploying AI it cannot check.
We build the check, and we publish every result, our own failures first.
Most AI honesty checks have never been broken on purpose. We break ours first.
nulltest asks whether an honesty benchmark measures honesty or string shape. It never runs a model. We pointed it at 20 honesty and hallucination benchmarks, our own nine included.
nulltest prints about itself: 201 false alarms in 5,000 clean runs, ten constructions × 500 seeds (v1.4; v1.3 said 4.6% over seven constructions and was corrected the same day). Each tool ships with the break-test that would catch it lying.The next three
What the next gifts build
The NullTest tools in the public honestytools repository are Apache-2.0. Gifts decide how fast the next three ship.
Fund the next tool- 01
abstaintestA certificate for whether a model's “I don't know” means it doesn't know. Every abstain, escalate and route decision rests on that.
- 02
An outside signature
The first verdict re-derived and signed by someone outside the lab. Today every verdict is still signed by the lab itself, and independence requires that to end.
- 03
Three revivals
checkerboard,renewandobservertesteach have a costed path back, judged against their own kill conditions.
Standings · ranked by single gift
Keeper VII is still unnamed.
Three donors have led October so far. Priya Natarajan has held the lead since 12 Oct. If she holds it, this will be her second Lantern of 2026, the most anyone can hold in a year. Pick an amount and see where you land.led from 12 Oct and held it to the close. The keeper is announced 1 November.
- 1Priya Natarajan$4,000Leads
- 2Anonymous$1,200−$2,800
- 3Hal Weiss$1,000−$3,000
- 4Sol Reyes$750−$3,250
- 5Mara Lindqvist$500−$3,500
The second-largest gift in October can't win. We evaluate Northlake's models. They can give, we list them by name, and that is all a gift from them can do.
The close
How the close works
- DeadlineThe race closes 31 Oct at 23:59:59 UTC. A gift counts if the public ledger records it by then.
- TiesA tie goes to the earlier gift. That is why $4,001 takes the lead and $4,000 does not.
- One giftThe Lantern ranks single gifts. Two gifts of $2,500 count as $2,500.
- 1 NovThe keeper is announced and cut into the Roll.
What the keeper keeps
Hold the Lantern for a month. Keep it for good.
A thank-you email fades. The Lantern stays where your peers look: on the Roll, in the commit history of the tool that audits AI honesty benchmarks, and on a receipt anyone can check without trusting us.
Showing Ada Kowalczyk's honor, Keeper VI. Type a name to preview Keeper VII. Nothing you type is saved or sent.
A card worth posting
1200 × 630Sized for X, LinkedIn and Bluesky. Its footer points to your line on the Roll, your run and your receipt.
A signed receipt
verify, offline{
"honor": "lantern",
"roll": "VI",
"month": "2026-09",
"keeper": "Ada Kowalczyk",
"gift": "USD 3200.00",
"run": "kowalczyk-2026-09",
"sig": "ed25519:q0Xb…Fw=="
}
$ python3 aperture_verify.py verify lantern-2026-09.json
OK signature valid · key pinned
Signed with the lab's pinned key. Anyone can replay it with our own verify tool, one stdlib+crypto file, offline and with no call back to us. It checks the same way every verdict we publish does.
A line on the Roll
cut in for goodA badge for your README
links to the RollModel-free checks for our honesty evals.
[](https://honesty.tools/lantern/roll#vi)It links to your line on the Roll and to your receipt, so anyone who doubts it can check it.
Your name in the repo
commit history$ git log --oneline -- calibration/ ······· calibration run <your-name>-2026-10 (1 Nov) calibration run you-2026-10 a41c0de calibration run kowalczyk-2026-09 7be22f9 calibration run lantern-2026-08 c03e9a1 calibration run natarajan-2026-07
Each month's calibration run in the public repo is named for the keeper. Your name goes into the history of the tool that audits AI honesty benchmarks.
Lead at the close on 31 October and all of this is yours on 1 November.
October's keeper is announced on 1 November. November's race opens then.
Claim the Lantern $4,001Three honors, every month
A $5 gift can win one too.
The Lantern goes to the largest single gift. The Steady Flame and the Spark ignore the amount.
of October's 214 donors give every month. They are the Lamplighters. They keep the lab running between big gifts, and every one of them is building a Steady Flame.
Become a Lamplighter · $5 a monthLargest single gift
Leading:Largest gift: Priya Natarajan, 12 Oct.
Your way in: one gift of $4,001.Keeper VII is announced 1 Nov.
Claim the Lantern →Longest monthly streak, any amount
Held by Tomás Ibarra, $5 a month, 27 months unbroken.
Your way in: $5 a month, unbroken.
Start a streak at $5 a month →One donor, drawn in public
Drawn 1 Nov from every October donor. Sample run: Mara Lindqvist, D-0192.
Your way in: any gift by 31 Oct. One donor, one light.November's draw opens 1 Nov. One donor, one light.
Check the draw yourself ↓Every donor is a light. 214 in October. The brightest leads the Lantern race. The blue one is an AI lab we evaluate.
Check the draw
Don't trust our draw. Run it.
The rule is public, and this page runs it in your browser. On 1 November the seed takes the hash of the closed ledger, so nobody can know the winner before then, including us. Below is a sample run on a placeholder hash.
- Seed
- lantern-2026-10 | ledger-close 2026-10-31T23:59:59Z | sha256:9f3c1a…e04b
- Entrants
- 214 donor IDs, D-0001 to D-0214
- Rule
- index = SHA-256(seed) mod 214
- SHA-256
- c5874368df7cdeb2b0f7fdf91dc47a567140415c3cea86c592b02ce297b97b1f
Independence
No AI company can buy this lab.
Every result is published, failures included, and the NullTest tools in the public honestytools repository are Apache-2.0. The rules below are why the Lantern is an honor money can't corrupt.
- No sayDonors get no access, no vote on what we study, and no early look at any result.
- 15%No donor gives more than 15% of a year's budget.
- 25%All AI labs together stay under 25%.
- Can't winLabs whose models we evaluate can give. We list them by name. They can't win an honor.
- 2 a yearNobody holds the Lantern more than twice in a year.
- Opt-inYour name appears only if you choose. Anonymous is an honored name on the Roll.
October ledger
Sample figuresCap bars share one scale, 0 to 30% of the year's budget. Cyan is under the cap.
Nobody will ever wonder what the Lantern bought you. It says you paid for evidence nobody gets to bend, including you.
- VIIOctober 2026Open · 8d 09:50:25Announced 1 Novline VII is still blank
- VISeptember 2026Ada Kowalczykkowalczyk-2026-09
- VAugust 2026Anonymouslantern-2026-08
- IVJuly 2026Priya Natarajannatarajan-2026-07
- IIIJune 2026The Okonkwo familyokonkwo-2026-06
- IIMay 2026Ren Takahashitakahashi-2026-05
- IApril 2026Lena Fischerfischer-2026-04
October closes in 8d 09:50:25October is closed
Put your name on the next line.
The Roll is permanent, and October's line stays blank until the clock runs out. Priya Natarajan leads with $4,000. A gift of $4,001 takes the lead. Whoever leads at the close becomes Keeper VII.
October's line is cut on 1 November. November's race opens then, and its line starts blank.
Tomás Ibarra started at $5 a month, 27 months ago. He holds the Steady Flame.