Generative AI Fundamentals Map

Map/Trust and governance/Wave 9

Legitimate governance

Who governs the shared layer, and how it stays plural.

capabilitySpeculative Open on the map →

Facts

Lane: Trust and governance
Wave: 9 of 12 (build order, not a date)
Needs: 17 boxes all the way back through hard links
Unlocks: 4 boxes downstream through hard links
Leverage: 0.3 points · stands in the way of 4 of 53 stages · rank 26 of 57
Cluster: Trust plumbing and the agent economy

Evidence as of October 2026

DeepMind’s "mission economies" would point agent markets at goals a society agrees on.

01Virtual Agent Economies (Google DeepMind)

Around it

Needs · 1

Audit and attributioncapability · Emerging

Unlocks · 2

Civilisation-scale knowledgestage · Speculative
Choosing the objectivestage · Speculative

Brakes

Works against this box

AI-enabled power concentrationbrake · Speculative

Loops and off-ramps

Capex pullbackoff-ramp · cut off
Taiwan chip disruptionoff-ramp · cut off
Power shortfalloff-ramp · cut off
Capability plateauoff-ramp · cut off
Training data ruled outoff-ramp · slowed

Openings researchers' judgement, October 2026 scouting

Startup room 46/100 · rank 41 of 124 Research room 69/100 · rank 6 of 124

Crowding2 Lab overlap3 Small-team fit4 Buyer today1.5 Research openness5

Depth: deep
Players: Collective Intelligence Project; Google DeepMind (Habermas Machine); Cooperative AI Foundation $10m fund; Remesh; Jigsaw
Wedge: Research on governance of the agent layer (identity, reputation, commitment protocols, oversight of agent populations) and public-input evals; there is no venture buyer yet. research