EarthCommons

Exploring the funding and governance of nature’s commons.
Incubated by @FilecoinGreen @ProtocolLabs. 🌎

[Funding the Commons @FundingCommons]

仁, the Chinese character for humaneness, is made of a person and the number two.

Our humanity lives between people, not inside our heads. Worth remembering as we build what comes next.

[Crypto Altruists @Crypto_Altruism]

Most AI is extractive: huge energy demands, surveillance, enclosed Indigenous knowledge. Can any of it serve ecological regeneration?

@BioFiProject is hosting a deep dive on that, with Planet Labs, @regen_network, and @GainForestNow. Nov 3, online. 🌱

https://t.co/B64G20al7N

[Funding the Commons @FundingCommons]

Thank you to everyone who has registered, applied to speak, and shared the Funding the Commons Forum in San Francisco so far.

We've moved it to March 13–14, 2027. It was a tough call, but we need more time to make the Forum what we know it needs to be for the question at its heart: what public goods, shared infrastructure, and institutions look like in the age of AI.

If you've wanted to speak, partner, or curate with us, there's now more room to do that, so please reach out at [email protected].

More on the Forum: https://t.co/N314UBnnhi

[Prosper Global Ventures @ProsperGV]

What changes when climate insurance is built directly into a loan?

In this episode of @Crypto_Altruism, our pilot partners break down what it actually takes to embed climate risk into credit, and what that unlocked for borrowers previously considered too risky.

Listen: 🎧⬇️🎧

[Funding the Commons @FundingCommons]

Our San Francisco Forum starts from a simple idea: the questions AI raises don't belong to one field, so the answers can't come from one either.

Will you join us? 👇

Apply to speak: https://t.co/TaEWWoclvt

Register: https://t.co/oNR4r3pgj4

[Funding the Commons @FundingCommons]

Evolution doesn't select the most efficient organism; it selects the most robust.

Biologist Olivier Hamant on why our hyper-optimized systems are fragile, and what robustness looks like instead.

The Great Simplification w/ @NJHagens.

https://t.co/Ts5ZYbqvMu

[Funding the Commons @FundingCommons]

Early-bird tickets to the Funding the Commons Forum close this Sunday.

On November 7-8, two hundred people gather in San Francisco to ask whether abundant intelligence ends up widely shared or narrowly held.

Join us. 👇
https://t.co/oNR4r3pgj4

[Funding the Commons @FundingCommons]

Who's doing the most interesting work on the future of AI right now?

Tag someone who should be in this room, in the Bay Area and beyond. 👇

[Funding the Commons @FundingCommons]

This year, Nvidia became worth more than Germany's entire economy. A few companies now hold more capital, compute, and reach than most countries.

That means the decisions that used to belong to public institutions increasingly happen inside private ones: what rules a model follows, what billions of people see, which technologies get built next.

But they answer to shareholders, not the public.

Once our world runs on these systems, that setup is much harder to unwind, while the usual check, regulation, has been lagging behind.

How did we solve for this before? Earlier eras built institutions to hold it: antitrust, public utilities, oversight. The AI age needs its own institutions, so answerability can be built into the systems. Think shared infrastructure, open models no single company holds, tools to audit them, and funding for public goods.

Building that is our next frontier. On November 7 and 8, the Funding the Commons Forum brings two hundred researchers, engineers, policymakers, funders, and citizens to San Francisco to work on how power this large stays answerable.

If you're building the models, mechanisms, or institutions this takes, come. Early-bird tickets close September 6.

Join us: https://t.co/Q7mXkSNcqz
Apply to speak: https://t.co/mj7faP3wMN

[Funding the Commons @FundingCommons]

If intelligence becomes abundant, what becomes precious?

Come think it through with 200 researchers, builders, and funders in San Francisco this November. Talks, panels, fishbowls, and formats you invent.

Apply to speak: https://t.co/EQD7mtYPfa

[Funding the Commons @FundingCommons]

Finance is the biggest lever we have, and right now it is aimed at stripping the very systems all wealth depends on.

Pointing it at regeneration instead is how a livable economy gets funded.

https://t.co/dGtjFFaKSS

[Funding the Commons @FundingCommons]

Will abundant intelligence become the widest shared inheritance in history, or the narrowest concentration of power ever assembled?

On November 7-8, the Funding the Commons Forum comes to San Francisco.

200 researchers, engineers, policymakers, and funders, gathering to shape the answer.

[David Dao @dwddao]

What a day in Zurich with @protocollabs_rd @FundingCommons and @ETH_AI_Center ! 🌱

On Wednesday we hosted our workshop on "Decision Sovereignty for Nature" and I'm still processing all the great conversations. Starting with a beautiful and engaging hike to Uetliberg, followed by intense and some of the best discussions ever at the ETH AI Center and a gorgeous dinner at sunset at the lake at AMERON.

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us. Researchers, practitioners, funders and policy folks all in one room, wrestling with a hard question: who gets to decide for nature, and how can AI help without taking that decision power away from the communities and ecosystems it affects?

The input was honest, sharp and generous. Together we are shaping the first draft of a declaration on decision sovereignty for nature, and that document only exists because of what each of you brought to the table.

This is just the start. We'll carry the declaration forward to our next workshop at Columbia University in New York Climate Week, and ultimately to the UN Biodiversity COP17 in Armenia and COP31 in Turkey. Step by step, we want to turn Wednesday's ideas into something the world can actually use.

If you were in the room: thank you. If you want to be part of what comes next: reach out, we'd love to have you. More soon on https://t.co/qE2d6l8EkB 🌍

Thank you @milliechapma Kim and La Christa for co-organizing this event! With many friends such as @GainForestNow @GlowFND @humntech @hypercerts @maearthstudio @SimplexDNA and more

[Funding the Commons @FundingCommons]

In Zurich? Join us on Wednesday to put decision sovereignty for nature on paper 👇

[Funding the Commons @FundingCommons]

The systems we're building this decade will carry assumptions about human nature for a very long time.

The question is whose.

@Pericarus makes the case for Elinor Ostrom's 👇

[Funding the Commons @FundingCommons]

Who decides how nature is valued and governed, when the deciding is done by AI built far from the ecosystems it affects?

On July 22, we're hosting a workshop with @protocollabs at @ETH_AI_Center in Zurich to draft a joint declaration before COP17.

https://t.co/NOXIVvo6Ys

[EarthCommons @EarthCommons]

@Crypto_Altruism @gooddollarorg @flowstatecoop @wydeorg @maearthstudio Loving the @launchnodes case study!

[Octant @OctantApp]

Climate Innovation and Impact Projects on Epoch 12 https://t.co/dcO8IdzNhx

[Funding the Commons @FundingCommons]

Our new governance report is live.

We gave six communities money, total freedom, and an AI that could spend it for them, then watched how they chose to govern.

A field study in AI-assisted governance, with @protocollabs @GainForestNow @OctantApp @hypercerts 👇

[Funding the Commons @FundingCommons]

If you want to go fast, go alone.

If you want to go far, fund the commons.