The instrument predicts the prudential gradient, from public evidence alone.
Known-groups validity is the classical measurement criterion: a valid instrument must distinguish groups that theory predicts should differ. The substrate's known-groups test is the prudential supervisory gradient. Banks operate under the most mature governance supervision in the regulated financial population, with credit-risk capital frameworks, operational-risk requirements, and recovery and resolution planning extending across decades. Pension funds and sovereign wealth funds operate under thinner agentic governance regimes, with relatively narrower mandates and fewer regulatory disclosure requirements on AI-relevant operational matters. The substrate reproduces this gradient in mean governance pillar (c_gov) from public evidence alone, without sector input during scoring. The between-sector mean range of 8.82 points exceeds within-sector dispersion. The ordering is consistent with Cronbach and Meehl (1955) and replicates across the v8 publication and the v13.1.0 founding cohort.
Each bar measures the mean governance pillar (c_gov) for institutions in the named sector across the v13.1.0 sealed substrate. Sectors are arranged in ascending order of mean score. The gradient moves from pension funds (12.10) and sovereign wealth funds (12.54) through reinsurers (14.31), investment managers (16.27), exchanges (18.29), fintechs (18.60), and insurers (18.84) to banks (20.92). The ordering is consistent with the relative maturity of prudential supervision across the named sectors. The scanner has no sector input during scoring; the gradient is reproduced from public evidence alone, satisfying the known-groups validity criterion of Cronbach and Meehl (1955).