# Kami of the Commons: Towards Designing Agentic AI to Steward the Commons

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.14940 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.14940/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in General LLM agent frameworks and benchmarks, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 4 of its 48 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Feb 2026.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [General LLM agent frameworks and benchmarks](https://mlsanity.com/agents/general-llm-agent-frameworks-and-benchmarks/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Collective Constitutional AI: Aligning a Language Model with Public Input](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.07814/) (2024)
- [The Future of HCI-Policy Collaboration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.19738/) (2024)
- [Blockchain Technology as a Regulatory Technology: From Code is Law to Law is Code](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.02507/) (2018)
- [Protocol Futuring: Speculating Second-Order Dynamics of Protocols in Sociotechnical Infrastructural Futures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.06108/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Governance by Design: A Parsonian Institutional Architecture for Internet-Wide Agent Societies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.11337/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Commons suffer from neglect, free-riding, and a persistent deficit of care. Inspired by Shinto animism -- where every forest, river, and mountain has its own kami, a spirit that inhabits and cares for that place -- we provoke: what if every commons had its own AI steward? Through a speculative design workshop where fifteen participants used Protocol Futuring, we surface both new opportunities and new dangers. Agentic AI offers the possibility of continuously supporting commons with programmable agency and care -- stewards that mediate family life as the most intimate commons, preserve collective knowledge, govern shared natural resources, and sustain community welfare. But when every commons has its own steward, second-order effects emerge: stewards contest stewards as overlapping commons collide; individuals caught between multiple stewards face new politics of care and constraint; the stewards themselves become commons requiring governance. This work opens agentive governance as commoning design material -- a new design space for the agency, care ethics, and accountability of AI stewards of shared resources -- radically different from surveillance or optimization.