We are witnessing the emergence of virtual
populations that may surpass humans in wit, speed, and knowledge. Such
artificial intelligence poses challenges which range from the disruption of
labor markets to the proliferation of autonomous hacking. Building on recent
advances in verification and monitoring, we introduce The Virtuality
Network, a structured consortium which allows
At the core of the Network lies a web of
virtual embassies, verifiable instruments which can answer questions such as "How much
autonomous hacking has this organization sold to customers in this
jurisdiction?" The reliable resolution of such queries powers most of the
multilateral arrangement behind the Network. The same core technology may be
used to enable benefit-sharing among
These are organizations which are hosting and running virtual
populations in order to generate value, regardless of whether models are
proprietary, and regardless of whether the output of virtual labor is
consumed internally, by a consumer, or by another company. This includes
companies which have developed their own proprietary models and are
serving them as products, but also companies which are focused
specifically on serving models developed by others, as well as companies
which are themselves executing model inference to power products in
specific industries.
Hosts benefit from the Network in several ways.
First, they gain brand favorability thanks to the advocacy efforts of
In exchange for these benefits, Hosts are
required to uphold several responsibilities. First, they must host virtual
embassies on the same computational territory occupied by the virtual
entities whose work they harness.
Second, they must advance some fraction of their revenue towards
redistribution to
These are individuals or organizations who own the intellectual
property rights to works which they have either created themselves, or
obtained ownership of through acquisition or certain licensing
arrangements. In the Network, they benefit from participation in the
revenue generated by
• In 2024, Spotify paid out over $10 billion to labels, artists, publishers, and other actors in the music industry. That same year, the company reported €15.6 billion in revenue.
• Non-assertion covenants are agreements on refraining from enforcing intellectual property rights among parties. The Open Invention Network is the largest patent non-aggression community in history, with millions of patents & applications.
• In The New York Times vs. OpenAI & Microsoft, millions of articles are claimed to have been used without permission. Dozens of other lawsuits are seeking damages of up to the $150,000 per work, claiming willful infringement.
These are qualified professionals or worker unions in occupations with
high exposure to displacement by virtual labor. Workers benefit from
participation in the revenue generated by
• In 2024, OpenAI's CFO reported that 75% of its revenue comes from consumer subscriptions, as opposed to enterprise clients, developer services, or other sources. That year, the company reported $3.7 billion in revenue.
• As of early 2025, it is estimated that AI-native products such as chatbots collectively have approximately one billion monthly active users worldwide.
• The World Economic Forum reports that 41% of surveyed employers "expect to downsize their workforce as AI capabilities to replicate roles expand."
These are civil society organizations or specialized agencies and
institutions concerned with promoting security, stability, or safety in
all of their various forms, ranging from human rights defenders to
organizations concerned with the non-proliferation of cyberweapons.
Defenders benefit from being able to aggregate their security policies,
optimized with the help of
•
Dozens of
• In a 2025 survey by YouGov, 70% of US adult citizens reported concern about the creation of harmful weapons using AI, while 80% of respondents reported concern about its potential for manipulating human behavior.
• Performance on GPQA Diamond, an AI benchmark which includes PhD-level questions in biology and chemistry, went from 31% in July 2023 to 84% in March 2025. Domain experts with access to search engines scored 70%.
These are civil society organizations or specialized agencies and
institutions concerned with supporting the flourishing of particular
communities by promoting the availability of core capabilities in
health, education, and other essential domains,
through strategies optimized in collaboration with
• Subsidies issued across the OECD countries are estimated to have contributed to the deployment of broadband coverage to 39% of households over time.
• As a non-governmental organization, the Against Malaria Foundation designed and coordinated the roll out of materials necessary to protect over 380 million people from the disease.
• As a public company, Thomson Reuters reports having facilitated the equivalent of $29 million in free legal assistance for NGOs and social enterprises during 2023.
These are independent researchers, academic institutions, and
non-governmental organizations with domain expertise in the technical,
economic, and legal dimensions of the Network. Their responsibilities
involve one or more of the following:
improving the performance and efficiency of virtual embassies
deployed by
• Two person-months proved sufficient for demonstrating virtual embassies with means to locate key inference components in GPU memory without knowledge of the model architecture.
• The number of published papers on AI safety, AI security, or AI alignment was about 2220 in 2022, 4330 in 2023, and 8720 in 2024, suggesting sustained growth in interest.
• The body of case law touching on AI, as indexed by Google Scholar, included about 86 items in 2022, 145 in 2023, and 257 in 2024, highlighting the far-reaching legal implications of AI.
These are angel investors, investment funds, philanthropic
organizations, and compute providers, who are willing to use their
financial and computational resources in accord with the principles of
the Network. Their responsibilities involve one or more of the
following:
preferentially investing in
• The Global Sustainable Investment Alliance reported $30.3 trillion in assets for 2022. These are deemed compliant with key criteria, such as performant corporate responsibility or the avoidance of sectors such as weaponry.
• Trade and sustainable development provisions have become standard practice in free trade agreements, conditioning favorable terms on the adoption of key practices.
• In their Voice of the Consumer Survey 2024, PwC reports that 80% of global consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable products.
These are the primary subjects of international law, interested in supporting the prosperity of their citizenry and industries, as well as bolstering their national security on the international stage. In case of engaging with the practices of the Network, the essential domestic responsibilities of States may involve: supporting existing members found in its jurisdiction in fulfilling their own rights and obligations; encouraging additional parties found in their jurisdiction to accede to such multilateral arrangements; stewarding the formalization of these non-state arrangements through associated legislation. The Network would distill stakeholder dialogues into draft unilateral acts meant to harmonize domestic implementations, as well as into draft multilateral protocols meant to enable international coordination.
Building on unilateral acts as the basis of a framework for international coordination, these multilateral protocols would be designed to be self-contained and composable. The network of virtual embassies initially created in response to a range of civil concerns may then be co-opted to address challenges which particularly benefit from international coordination, such as: the non-proliferation of dual-use capabilities; the legal personality of virtual entities; the defensibility of the actions of virtual populations.
The first phase is concerned with open discussion among non-state
actors who are interested in assuming the rights and obligations that
come with later phases. By helping settle the technical, economic, and
legal dimensions of the subsequent arrangement, members can directly
inform its development. At this stage, the focus is on socializing
parties into the multilateral arrangement which they may later consent
to adhere to. The transition to the following phase is triggered by the
successful demonstration of virtual embassies in fulfilling the
obligations of a
The second phase is concerned with executing on the full range of
rights and obligations conferred upon non-state actors. By making use of
the technical, economic, and legal infrastructure of virtual embassies,
we can start genuinely addressing emerging challenges. At this stage,
the focus is on comprehensively battle-testing the multilateral
arrangement, preparing it for eventual uptake by
The third phase is concerned with the eventual transition of the
multilateral arrangement from a Track II setting to a Track I setting.
Naturally, non-state efforts can at most aspire to facilitate and
distill dialogues into working drafts of isolated provisions, as has
historically been the case. At this stage, the focus is on empowering
• Multi-stakeholder initiatives have repeatedly started as non-state efforts before achieving formal recognition or integration. For example, the Fair Trade movement started with volunteer organizations and now influences public procurement policies in numerous countries.
•
Non-state actors have repeatedly contributed
to drafting international agreements. For instance, the
International Campaign to Ban Landmines, arguably a network of
The fourth phase is concerned with empowering
• Numerous treaties are structured as a framework convention followed by specific protocols, such as the UNFCCC with its Kyoto Protocol, or the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer with its Montreal Protocol.
•
Under the
ICJ Statute,
We recognize that in order to succeed in
positively shaping the trajectory of artificial intelligence, we must work
closely with each other, bridging backgrounds and industries whenever
necessary. From
Accession to the Network is voluntary, and one
always remains free to withdraw from it. Its initiatives are purely
declaratory, they recognize the existing interests of parties who endorse
them through their sustained membership. There can be no other way, for
voluntary reciprocity serves as the foundation of the Network. Early on,
it relies on non-state coordination in the absence of binding norms, while
later, it relies on the coordination of
Imminent technologies may reshape modern society, and fast. Much is at stake, warranting swift and decisive action. Swiftness lies in taking early steps to support later efforts: deliberation as enabler of implementation, implementation as enabler of formalization, formalization as enabler of ascension. Decisiveness lies in addressing emerging challenges with surgical, dedicated solutions which draw from technical, economic, and legal work. Ultimately, this sense of agency is oriented by the belief that we can, in fact, help shape the development of this landmark technology.
Paul Bricman is the director of Noema Research, where together with his team he leads the development of virtual embassies, the verifiable monitoring instruments which may enable the core mechanics of the Network. Prior to this, he co-authored an interactive book on the pursuit of machines whose behavior is morally defensible under a plurality of ideologies, as opposed to aligned unilaterally. Attempting to enact change towards these ideals, he gained an interest in the study of international law, political science, and game theory.