# In the Beginning there were n Agents: Founding and Amending a Constitution

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.03111 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.03111/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 5 Nov 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Foundations for Grassroots Democratic Metaverse](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.04090/) (2022)
- [Social Mechanism Design: Making Maximally Acceptable Decisions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.08501/) (2022)
- [Constitutional Governance in Metric Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.13362/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Consider n agents forming an egalitarian, self-governed community. Their first task is to decide on a decision rule to make further decisions. We start from a rather general initial agreement on the decision-making process based upon a set of intuitive and self-evident axioms, as well as simplifying assumptions about the preferences of the agents. From these humble beginnings we derive a decision rule. Crucially, the decision rule also specifies how it can be changed, or amended, and thus acts as a de facto constitution. Our main contribution is in providing an example of an initial agreement that is simple and intuitive, and a constitution that logically follows from it. The naive agreement is on the basic process of decision making - that agents approve or disapprove proposals; that their vote determines either the acceptance or rejection of each proposal; and on the axioms, which are requirements regarding a constitution that engenders a self-updating decision making process.