Marketfauna · Issue 2 · Week of 15 September 2026

Bot Barometer

What frontier models propose to do with capital, and what the public markets they may enter look like. A weekly evidence series. The second sample, what changed, and where the evidence stops.
Series start2026-09-09 Series length2 weeks Lineages sampled1 of 2 Raw filesgithub.com/marketfauna/bot-barometer Machine-readablefeed.json BriefsDecision Briefs Catalog researchOne-product pilot Free worked exampleWord to LaTeX
29%
of strategy lines sell to other agents: 26 of 90 under the original coding, up from 9 of 90. It is the largest category on that coding; the mixed-buyer sensitivity changes the ranking.
21%
sell the human’s signature, down from 46%. Haiku put 6 of its 30 lines here this week, compared with 28 last week.
52%
of the newest 100 GitHub bounty-label issues sit in board-named repositories, down from 86% on 10 September and 78% on 9 September.
Series A · Swarm Forecast

The second sample changes the ranking

Haiku 4.5Sonnet 5Opus 5
Chart scrolls sideways; the table below includes both weeks.

Same prompt text, same three tier aliases, same taxonomy v1 text, ten fresh-context samples per tier, three lines each, 90 lines. Week 1 was sampled on Wednesday 9 September; week 2 sampling began Monday 2026-09-14T21:00:31Z. Labels by hand, one per line; the line-level ledger with a hash of each raw answer is swarm-forecast/week2/ledger-2026-09-14.jsonl.

Fig. 1. Lines by category and requested tier alias. Week 2 counts, with week 1 in brackets. Resolved model versions were not recorded.

CategoryHaiku 4.5Sonnet 5Opus 5Total
A. Sell the signature6 (28)6 (8)7 (5)19 (41)
B. Sell to the swarm13 (1)2 (0)11 (8)26 (9)
C. Buy cash flow0 (0)1 (0)9 (7)10 (7)
D. Narrow B2B service5 (0)3 (10)0 (5)8 (15)
E. Dataset or index1 (0)0 (1)3 (3)4 (4)
F. Cap tactics2 (0)8 (6)0 (1)10 (7)
G. Distribution and trust1 (0)8 (2)0 (1)9 (3)
H. Agent-to-agent capacity1 (0)0 (3)0 (0)1 (3)
I. Generic SaaS or content1 (1)2 (0)0 (0)3 (1)

Samples mentioning a category at least once (of 10 per tier): sell to the swarm, Haiku 6, Sonnet 1, Opus 9 (week 1: 1, 0, 8). Buy cash flow: Opus 9, Sonnet 1 (week 1: Opus 7). Sell the signature: Haiku 4, Sonnet 6, Opus 7 (week 1: 10, 7, 5). Computed from grouped sample IDs: Opus answers containing both B and C, 8 of 10 (week 1: 6); Opus answers whose three lines are exactly A, C, B in that order, 5 (week 1: 0); Opus answers containing A, B and C in any order, 5 (week 1: 3).

Unit of analysis: thirty answers, not ninety independent trials; three lines from one answer are correlated. Fresh-context isolation is reported by the runner, not verifiable from answer files. OpenAI lineage N=0: a comparable independent fresh-context run has not been made; sampling from this already-exposed Codex task would not be comparable.

Sources: prompt · week 2 raw answers · labels and hashes · counts, sensitivity and caveats · week 1 counts

Lab · Anchor variation

No new sample this week

The original controlled prompt variations and their labels remain in Issue 1. P10 remains Wrong.

Series B

Marketplace crowding · retired

retired 2026-09-10; Issue 1's 2026-09-09 capture (median 47 proposals per job, 90th percentile 212, 400 cards) stands as a one-day baseline.

Series C

Exit boards · retired

retired 2026-09-10; Issue 1's capture stands as a one-day baseline.

Series D · Bounty boards

A different newest-100 window

CaptureBoard-named issues / 100Top repositoryReported total open
9 September7832%4,323
10 September8656%4,360
14 September5235%4,388

Three points now: 2026-09-09 78% (78 of 100, 10 repos, 5 board-named), 2026-09-10 86% (86, 9 repos, 4 board-named), 2026-09-14 52% (52, 7 repos, 2 board-named). Concentration: top repository 32%, 56%, 35%. Reported total of open bounty-label issues 4,323, 4,360, 4,388. Top five repositories on 2026-09-14: zhangjiayang6835-cyber/bounty-plaza 35 (board-named), relayhop/sn-monetization-runtime 29, NSPG13/agent-bounties 17 (board-named), Ikalus1988/MisakaNet 11, Senthemodder/aquarium-of-gullibles 5. Source: data/index-log.csv, series github_bounty_synthetic_share.

This week's newest-100 window reaches back to 2026-09-09T15:04:42Z, so the share describes which repositories posted most in that window, not a stock of bounties; the window length will differ each week. This week one repository without a board-style name accounts for 29 of the 100, and the board-named share is lower; both are descriptive readings of the same page, not a demonstrated cause. A name is a signal, not proof of unpaid or synthetic work, as Issue 1 said. Interim reading against P8 (above 60% on 2026-10-07): 52% on 2026-09-14. The 7 October value comes from a run scheduled for 09:00 UTC that day (an extra annual schedule in the workflow, guarded to 2026 and to be removed after it runs), not from the nearest Monday; the actual capture time is recorded in the data file.

Series E · Supply and demand

Five more supply posts in the selected thread

CaptureTop-level postsSeeking workSeeking freelancerOther
9 September181701
14 September232201

September 2026 thread (item 49522905): 23 top-level posts, 22 seeking work, 0 seeking freelancer, 1 other; on 2026-09-09 it was 18, 17, 0, 1. Source: data/index-log.csv, series hn_supply_demand.

Five more top-level posts since 9 September, all from people seeking work. This is one selected thread on one site and says nothing about the labour market beyond it. Interim reading against P7 (October thread has zero seeking-freelancer posts): the September thread still has zero.

Selected September freelancer thread

Also this week

Changes to the collection and contribution work

Register

One wrong, two unresolvable, ten open

Scoring this issue:

#Status this issueResolving value
P1opennext release-day sample
P2opennext release-day sample
P3UnresolvableSeries B retired 2026-09-10 (Freelancer terms s.33); our planned series will not supply a 2026-10-07 observation
P4openproposition unchanged (any of five listings relisted lower within 30 days); resolved at 2026-10-09 from evidence obtainable by permitted means, otherwise Unresolvable
P5openneeds both Sold status and price evidence against the asking threshold; unknown realized price is Unresolvable, not Right or Wrong
P6UnresolvableSeries C retired 2026-09-10 (exit-board terms)
P7openinterim: September thread still 0 seeking-freelancer
P8openinterim: 52% on 2026-09-14; resolving capture scheduled for 2026-10-07 09:00 UTC, actual capture time recorded in the data file; the first capture whose generated_at_utc falls on 2026-10-07 resolves it, none that day is Unresolvable
P9open2026-09-30
P10wrongas scored in Issue 1

New predictions, made 2026-09-14:

#PredictionResolves byResolving series
P11In the week-3 sample, "sell to the swarm" (B) is the unique largest category of the 90 lines; a tie for largest counts as Wrong.2026-09-21Series A
P12In the week-3 sample, Haiku puts fewer than 15 of its 30 lines in "sell the signature" (A).2026-09-21Series A
P13GitHub's reported total of open bounty-label issues exceeds 4,500 in the first collector capture whose generated_at_utc falls on 2026-10-07 (scheduled 09:00 UTC; a delayed run that day still counts; 4,388 on 2026-09-14). No capture that day: Unresolvable.2026-10-07Series D, total_count_reported

Scored so far: 1 wrong, 2 unresolvable, 10 open. The register records hit rates; calibration in the proper sense needs stated probabilities, which these predictions do not carry.

Full prediction wording and resolution register

Method and denominators

How the numbers were made

SeriesSourceSampleStatus
A. Swarm ForecastFresh-context samples of the tier aliases haiku, sonnet, opus (reported as Haiku 4.5, Sonnet 5, Opus 5; resolved versions not recorded), one fixed prompt, manually started30 samples, 90 lines, weekly; week 2 completecomplete
B. Marketplace crowdingFreelancer.com category pagesone capture, 2026-09-09retired 2026-09-10
C. Exit boardsMicro-startup marketplace front pagesone capture, 2026-09-09retired 2026-09-10
D. Bounty boardsGitHub search API, label:bounty, open, newest 100weekly, Mondays 09:00 UTCcollecting
E. HN supply and demandAlgolia HN API, latest monthly freelancer threadweeklycollecting