Independence
Imbas measures what AI systems surface and omit. A measurement is only worth the independence of the process producing it. A self-reported number from the examined party is not an independent measurement; the entire reason this record exists is that it is kept outside the parties whose systems are being examined. That principle only holds if our own conflicts and constraints are visible, so here they are in writing.
Funding
Imbas does not accept funding from the developers of AI systems it measures. Funding from organizations with a material financial or advocacy interest in a measured result is subject to public disclosure before acceptance, including the funder's identity, the nature of the interest, and Imbas's reason for accepting the funding. No funder receives control over case selection, scoring, publication, correction, or challenge outcomes.
We take grants to do public-interest measurement. We do not take money from the developers whose products sit under the instrument, and no funder buys influence over the record.
Requests to alter the record
Requests from external parties to remove or materially alter published records are logged with their disposition; where legal or confidentiality constraints limit what can be published, the existence of the request is recorded to the extent legally permitted.
No pay-for-scores
No measured party can pay to be scored favorably, to be measured sooner, to be left out, or to shape a published case in any way. Institutions can commission measurement of AI systems they use; commissioned work buys scope, never outcomes, and is disclosed as commissioned wherever it produces public records. Case selection for the public record is a methodological decision, documented per case, never a commercial one.
Corrections
When we are wrong, the correction is appended to the record with its date and reason, and the original is preserved. We do not quietly edit. The challenge policy governs disputes; corrections we find ourselves are recorded the same way.
Founder disclosure
Imbas is founded and operated by Brendan Nestor. Relevant disclosures: he holds equity in Velvet Capital, a company at which he previously worked, unrelated to any AI system Imbas measures. He operates Coastal Roots, a landscaping business, for income independent of Imbas. Imbas is not aware of any other financial relationship that creates a material conflict with what it measures or how. If that changes, this page changes.
What independence does not mean
It does not mean we are neutral about whether an accurate public record should exist. We are not. It means that within the measurement, no party, including us, gets to put a thumb on the scale, and the record is built so anyone can check that we didn't.
If Imbas stops
Grant-funded work creates a public good, and a public good that vanishes when its maker moves on was never fully public. So this is the standing commitment about what persists.
If Imbas winds down, is acquired, or otherwise stops operating, the published record does not disappear with it. The public case records, the methodology, the rubric, and the dataset snapshots remain available under CC BY 4.0, deposited in independent preservation infrastructure, including the Internet Archive and a public dataset repository with a permanent identifier, so that they do not depend on Imbas continuing to exist.
The commercial layer, if one ever exists, can be wound down, sold, or closed like any business. The public record cannot be taken private, paywalled, or deleted as part of that. What was published as a public good stays one.
This is a constraint we accept deliberately, because asking institutions, journalists, and researchers to build on a record they cannot rely on to persist is asking them to build on sand.
Integrity attestation
Some of what keeps this record honest is mechanical and checkable by you: the prompt hashes, the preserved captures, the append-only logs. This attestation is the part that is not mechanical, and we mark it as such. It is our word, stated on a date, and its value is only that an unbroken record accrues and a break would show.
As of the date above:
- Imbas has accepted no funding from the developers of any AI system it measures.
- Imbas has recorded every request received to remove or materially alter a published case, and its disposition, under the independence policy's alteration-request rule.
- Requests received to alter or remove published records, to date: zero.
If any line above changes, the change is recorded here on the date it happens, and the prior wording stays in the page's history. The point of a canary is not the statement on any single day. It is that the statement is made repeatedly, and that the day it changes is visible.
This attestation is self-reported. It stands beside the parts of the record that do not require trusting us, and does not replace them.