A commons is something held together: a resource that is neither owned by one party nor left ungoverned, but stewarded by a community through explicit rules.
Not lawless
The lasting commons of history were not lawless — they were tightly governed, with clear rights, obligations, and ways of excluding abuse. That is the crucial correction to a common misreading: “open” without governance is not a commons; it is enclosure on a delay, waiting for the first party organized enough to capture it. A real commons needs geometry: membership, contribution, stewardship, and enforcement.
What belongs in it
For machine intelligence, the strongest candidates are the things expensive to build once, cheap to share, and dangerous to let one party control — evaluation, foundational knowledge, and the protocols of interoperation.
Natural commons
Some commons were never built: the sea, the shore, orbit, spectrum. These are natural commons: licensed or crossed, never owned. A resort may charge for its pool, never for the beach.