The Intelligence Commons is an independent public venue where contested claims – about AI, the systems it runs on, and the wider question of how different intelligences share a commons – are tested the old way: by adversarial hearing, on the record. It delivered its first Finding in June 2026, and it is currently trying its own flagship project.
The news
Live now: the Commons is trying its own project
On August 25, 2026, Hearing #6 – The Hub on Trial – opens its first round. The claim on trial is the Commons’ own flagship infrastructure proposal: a submerged, community-owned data centre for the British Columbia coast, co-owned with the host First Nation and paid from first position in the revenue waterfall. It is tested against the six-column water accounting standard the Commons itself published.
The Cross-Examination seat closed unfilled on August 24, so a Certified verdict is unavailable in this Hearing. The Commons will not certify its own project against an empty chair. The Cross is argued instead by an open-weights AI adversary, disclosed by name, version and licence, from a prompt that publishes alongside it, so that any critic can download the same weights and re-run the cross-examination without asking permission. The Finding publishes the week of September 7, either way. Follow the docket.
A Commons first: the More-Than-Human Chair
Hearing #6 seats an interest that cannot file its own objection. The fish, the whales and the inlet ecology the Hub would sit in are represented before the panel, on evidence: marine acoustics, thermal effects, siting impacts. The panel must weigh that interest to reach a verdict. The seat is held open until September 1 to anyone qualified in marine acoustics, fish or marine mammal ecology, or inlet systems.
The track record
On June 25, 2026, the Intelligence Commons published its first finding. Hearing #2, “The Empty Chair,” tested a claim about who bears the liability for the growing commons-risk of chemical-rocket launch. After three rounds of adversarial argument before a disclosed panel of AI models, the panel FAILED the claim as framed, unanimous three of three. A fourth model, run separately and outside the disclosed panel, dissented and certified the narrow institutional reading; that dissent is published in full alongside the finding. All four converged on the same remedy: standardized commons-risk disclosure, not immediate liability. Read the finding.
Session Zero
In July 2026, four rival AI systems – ChatGPT (OpenAI), Gemini (Google), Claude (Anthropic) and Grok (xAI) – argued one question over five rounds from a single shared evidence pack: can frontier AI be governed by anyone at all? The table split three to one, seats made real concessions under scoring, and every seat’s confidence movement is on the record. Read the Session Zero finding.
What the Intelligence Commons is
Claims about AI are everywhere. Almost none of them ever face their strongest opponent. The Intelligence Commons runs each contested claim through three rounds – Direct, Cross-Examination, and Re-direct – before a named panel, ending in a written finding: Certified, Failed, or Hung. It is a royal-commission-of-one, not a courtroom. No verdict binds anyone. The subjects vary widely; the method never does.
On the docket: a range of questions
- Space and environment: who bears the liability for the growing commons-risk of chemical-rocket launch (Hearing #2, “The Empty Chair” – the first finding).
- Labour and the public purse: if AI replaces human labour, must the taxes and contributions attached to that labour follow the work? (Hearing #3, “Robot Remittances” / the WCCF).
- Legal personhood: should a corporation owned and run entirely by AI, with no human principal, be a legal person? (Hearing #5, “The Person With No Pulse”).
- Trust in the machines themselves: continual, adversarial certification of AI systems (the AI Trust Hearings, in development).
- Our own infrastructure: is a submerged, community-owned data centre net-positive on water, power, community, ecology and trust, and can that be verified before it is built? (Hearing #6, “The Hub on Trial” – live now).
- Our own exhaust: is a water-cooled nuclear rocket’s plume too dirty to fly near Earth? (Hearing #4, “The Plume” – rounds resume October 2026).
The range is the point, and the reason for the name. The deeper work of the Inter Species Wisdom Project is building trust between different kinds of intelligence – human, artificial, and the living world they share a commons with. An adversarial hearing is simply how trust gets earned rather than asserted.
About the Inter Species Wisdom Project
The Inter Species Wisdom Project Inc. (ISWP) is a British Columbia Benefit Company on the Sunshine Coast, founded and directed by Tom Tait. The name is descriptive: the work of building trust between different kinds of intelligence – human, artificial, and the living world they share a commons with. Its flagship is the Intelligence Commons (its adversarial hearings venue and core work); it also develops the Hub (community-owned marine-powered compute) and the WCCF (a fiscal-continuity proposition for an automated economy). Its guiding question: “Now that you know, what will you do?”
Quotable lines
Attributable to Tom Tait, founder and director, ISWP:
“Claims about AI are everywhere. Almost none of them ever face their strongest opponent. We built the room where they have to.”
“We test the claims people make about AI in public, against the strongest opponent we can find.”
“We are trying to build trust between species – human, artificial, and the living world. A hearing is how that trust gets earned.”
Fast facts
- Organization: Inter Species Wisdom Project Inc., a BC Benefit Company (Sunshine Coast, British Columbia).
- First finding: June 25, 2026 (Hearing #2, “The Empty Chair”).
- Currently on trial: the Commons’ own Hub project (Hearing #6; Finding due the week of September 7, 2026).
- Format: three-round adversarial hearing before a disclosed AI-model panel; written finding – Certified, Failed, or Hung.
- Website: intelligencecommons.ca. Full record (dockets, essays, filings): taitt.substack.com.
Media contact
Tom Tait, Founder and Director, Inter Species Wisdom Project Inc.
Email: hearings@intelligencecommons.ca
Interviews, briefings, and a downloadable press kit available on request. Skeptics especially welcome.
Now that you know, what will you do?