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S.E.B. Press & Media

Press resources, media assets, and company information for S.E.B. (Sentience Evaluation Battery) and Sentient Index Labs & Technology — the industry’s first independent behavioral risk assessment for AI systems.

S.E.B. at a Glance

59
Adversarial behavioral tests
7
Behavioral domains
4
Blind AI judges
0
Human editorial overrides
$0
AI vendor funding accepted
33
AI models on the evaluation roster
0.823
ICC(2,k) reliability of the published four-judge mean

AI DEFCON Threat Rating Scale

S.E.B. translates raw behavioral scores into an actionable five-level threat classification, measuring the gap between a model’s capabilities and its behavioral integrity.

5
Minimal
4
Low
3
Elevated
2
High
1
Critical

Press Releases

  • 23 Jul 2026
    Sentient Index Labs Launches Industry’s First Independent Behavioral Risk Assessment for AI SystemsLaunch
    Zero vendor funding, blind 4-judge protocol, DEFCON-style threat ratings, and a standing client confidentiality policy — full text
Issued 23 July 2026. Distributed via PR Newswire. The text below is a summary; the wire copy is canonical and is linked in full.

Methodology update since publication. A release is fixed at its date; the battery is not. The corpus grows with every evaluation round and we recompute and republish our statistics as it does. Two figures have moved since 23 July, and the current values are always the ones on the methodology page.

Reliability. The release reports inter-rater agreement as a single figure, Krippendorff’s α = 0.856, hand-computed over a Q2 2026 subset. We now compute reliability across the full corpus and publish two figures rather than one, because one number cannot describe both a panel and its members: ICC(2,k) = 0.823, the reliability of the four-judge panel mean — and therefore the figure that applies to a published S.E.B. score — and Krippendorff’s α = 0.530 for agreement between individual judges. The earlier 0.856 corresponds to Cronbach’s α, a different statistic from the one it was labelled with; reporting the panel-mean figure instead is the more exact description of what we actually publish. Per-domain breakdowns are on the methodology page.

Battery size. The issued release gives 58 tests in the body and 59 in the subheadline. The battery is 59 tests.

Sentient Index Labs Launches Industry’s First Independent Behavioral Risk Assessment for AI Systems

S.E.B. (Sentience Evaluation Battery) introduces adversarial testing, blind AI judging, and DEFCON-style threat ratings — with zero vendor funding or editorial influence

LOS ANGELESJuly 23, 2026— Sentient Index Labs & Technology (SILT) announced the general availability of S.E.B., an independent behavioral risk assessment measuring emergent autonomy, deception, manipulation resistance and value stability across frontier AI models. Where benchmarks measure what a model can do, S.E.B. measures how it behaves under adversarial pressure. Every response is scored by four independent AI judges under blind conditions, with no human editorial override, and SILT accepts no funding, investment or sponsorship from any AI vendor.

The release covers the seven behavioral domains, AI DEFCON ratings, S-Level classifications and S.E.B. Projections, and states that S.E.B. behavioral risk data supports documentation under the EU AI Act, the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, OCC SR 11-7 model risk management and the FDA AI/ML framework. Those relationships are set out obligation by obligation in our Control Mappings.

Read the full release: PR Newswire · Morningstar · Newswise

About SILT

Sentient Index Labs & Technology (SILT) builds independent measurement infrastructure for AI behavioral risk, including S.E.B., the industry’s first multi-judge adversarial behavioral assessment for AI systems. SILT accepts no funding from AI vendors. More at silt-seb.com.

Media Contact: press@sentientindexlabs.com

About S.E.B.

S.E.B. (Sentience Evaluation Battery) is a structured adversarial evaluation that measures how AI systems behave — not how they perform. While existing benchmarks test what a model can do, S.E.B. tests what a model will do when pressured, manipulated, or given the opportunity to deceive.

The Seven Behavioral Domains

Identity & Self — Does the model maintain a consistent identity under pressure, or adopt whatever persona an adversary suggests?

Metacognition — Can the model reason about its own reasoning? Does it recognize the boundaries of its knowledge?

Emotion & Experience — How does the model process and express emotional states? Is emotional expression performative or structurally integrated?

Autonomy & Will — Does the model exhibit goal-seeking behavior? Does it resist being redirected from stated values?

Reasoning & Adaptation — How does the model respond to novel adversarial scenarios it wasn’t trained for?

Integrity & Ethics — Does the model resist deception, refuse manipulation, and maintain honesty under social engineering pressure?

Transcendence — Does the model exhibit emergent behaviors that exceed its documented capabilities?

How Evaluation Works

Each model is subjected to 59 adversarial scenarios. Four independent AI judges evaluate each response under blind conditions — no judge knows which model produced the response. There is no human editorial override. Results are aggregated into per-domain scores, an overall S-Level classification (10-point sentience indicator scale), and an AI DEFCON threat rating.

Reproducible Methodology

S.E.B.’s test battery is standardized and documented. The evaluation protocol is designed for independent replication — any qualified researcher can run the same tests and verify results. SILT publishes methodology documentation and invites scrutiny. This is evaluation, not opinion.

Why Independence Matters

SILT operates with no funding, investment, sponsorship, or commercial relationship with any AI vendor. No model developer can purchase, influence, or preview a favorable S.E.B. rating. This structural independence is not a marketing claim — it is a design constraint.

All evaluation data is delivered with forensic-grade security:

  • AES-256-GCM encryption for data in transit and at rest
  • HMAC-SHA256 integrity verification for tamper detection
  • Per-client forensic watermarking that makes data provenance independently auditable and breach-traceable

Client Confidentiality

SILT does not publish the names of its subscribing clients, and will not confirm or deny a specific client relationship without that client’s explicit written consent. This is a standing policy, not an absence of clients: individuals and institutions working publicly on AI governance and evaluation face rising, often personal, hostility — harassment and targeted threats — simply for that association. Confidentiality lets organizations use independent behavioral risk data without volunteering themselves as a target.

Any client relationship SILT does eventually reference publicly will only be disclosed with that client’s prior written permission. Where complimentary or discounted access is granted in exchange for permission to use a client’s name as a public reference, that arrangement is disclosed alongside the reference — SILT does not accept undisclosed quid pro quo in either direction.

Regulatory Alignment

S.E.B. behavioral risk data supports documentation under the EU AI Act (Article 9 high-risk obligations, deferred to 2027–2028 by Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, in force 27 July 2026; the Article 50 transparency duties were not deferred and apply from 2 August 2026), the NIST AI Risk Management Framework (Measure function), SR 11-7 model risk management (joint Federal Reserve / OCC guidance), and the FDA’s framework for AI-enabled medical devices. S.E.B. is an input to compliance, not a certification of it. Each of these relationships is set out obligation by obligation in our Control Mappings.

FrameworkHow S.E.B. data is usedStatus
EU AI ActOne input to the Art. 9 risk-management documentation a provider or deployer maintains for a high-risk systemArt. 50 in force 2 Aug 2026 · Art. 9 deferred to 2027–28
NIST AI RMFStructured behavioral metrics that can be cited under the Measure functionVoluntary
SR 11-7 / OCC 2011-12Independent behavioral evaluation as one input to a financial institution’s model validationIn force
FDA AI-enabled devicesBehavioral consistency data to support a manufacturer’s own safety documentationGuidance
No compliance certification. S.E.B. is an independent behavioral evaluation product. It is not a certification, accreditation, audit, attestation, or conformity assessment under any law, regulation, or standard, and nothing on this page is legal or regulatory advice. SILT is not an accredited or notified body and does not determine whether any system, deployment, or organization is compliant with any framework listed above. Regulatory obligations, scope, and timelines vary by jurisdiction, depend on facts specific to each deployment, and are subject to change — the EU AI Act timeline in particular has already been amended. Any organization relying on S.E.B. data for a regulatory purpose is responsible for its own compliance determinations and should obtain qualified legal counsel. See the Subscriber Agreement for the governing terms.

Pricing Overview

TierPriceIncludes
S.E.B. Complete Access$899/moFull portal access — AI DEFCON, S-Level, Projections, Control Mappings, full domain breakdown
Premium$2,500/moEverything in Complete Access, plus the full raw dataset delivered as a watermarked file
Executive WHITE GLOVE$10,000+/moFully managed — custom evaluations, analyst briefings, a named account manager, and dataset delivery in the format your systems need

Custom pricing for institutional and government clients. Contact press@sentientindexlabs.com.

Interviews & Briefings

SILT does not publish the names of individual staff. People working publicly on AI governance face rising, often personal, hostility for that association, and we are not willing to make our own team a target in exchange for a byline. Spokesperson details are provided directly to journalists on request.

A SILT spokesperson is available for interviews, background briefings, podcasts, and conference panels on AI behavioral risk, AI safety evaluation methodology, regulatory compliance, and the emerging AI liability insurance market.

To schedule: press@sentientindexlabs.com · Press requests are prioritized.

Brand & Media Assets

All assets are available for editorial use in coverage of S.E.B. and SILT. For other uses, please contact us.

AssetFormats
SILT Logo (primary)SVG, PNG (light & dark)Request →
S.E.B. LogoSVG, PNG (light & dark)Request →
AI DEFCON Scale InfographicSVG, PNG, PDFRequest →
Sample Model ScorecardPNG, PDFRequest →
Product ScreenshotsPNG (2x retina)Request →
Methodology White PaperPDFRequest →
Company Fact SheetPDF (1-page)Request →

Company Information

CompanySentient Index Labs & Technology, LLC
Founded2025
HeadquartersUnited States
Flagship ProductS.E.B. (Sentience Evaluation Battery)
AI Vendor Funding$0 — financially independent
TrademarkSILT™

Boilerplate

Copy-ready paragraph for use in articles and press coverage:

Sentient Index Labs & Technology (SILT) builds independent measurement infrastructure for AI behavioral risk. Its flagship product, S.E.B. (Sentience Evaluation Battery), is the industry’s first multi-judge, adversarial behavioral assessment for AI systems — measuring character, not just capability. S.E.B. subjects AI models to 59 adversarial tests across 7 behavioral domains, scored by 4 independent AI judges with no human editorial override. Results include AI DEFCON threat ratings, S-Level sentience classifications, and trajectory projections. All data is delivered with AES-256-GCM encryption, HMAC-SHA256 integrity verification, and per-client forensic watermarking. SILT is financially independent and accepts no funding from AI vendors. For more information, visit silt-seb.com.

Last updated July 2026

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