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AI and the Enclosure of the Scientific Commons
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2 min read
A paper submitted to arXiv on October 19, 2026 argues that artificial intelligence could enable the enclosure of the scientific literature, which it characterizes as an information commons shared by everyone. It applies economic and political frameworks developed around agricultural common lands, particularly England’s enclosure movement of roughly 1600 to 1800, to scientific information. The paper argues that English commons disappeared primarily through enclosure—the conversion of shared land into private property—rather than through the “tragedy of the commons.” It notes that many observers historically and today have regarded enclosure as theft on a societal scale. The authors contend that AI supplies tools that could make a comparable enclosure of information resources feasible, even though digital information and physical land differ. According to the paper, AI-enabled enclosure could convert shared knowledge into private wealth while weakening the social systems that sustain the scientific commons. It identifies “slop spam” as a mechanism that could undermine those systems. The paper presents its framework as a basis for examining concerns that AI’s effects on scientific knowledge could extend beyond isolated appropriation to broader damage to a shared way of life.