AI should replenish the knowledge commons: Every industrial revolution has had a defining raw material. Coal powered factories. Oil powered mobility. Data powered the digital economy. Artificial Intelligence is powered by humanity’s accumulated knowledge. For the first time in economic history, the world’s most valuable commercial resource is not extracted from the earth — it is accumulated within civilisation itself.
Unlike coal, oil or minerals, this resource is not hidden beneath the earth. It exists in our books, scientific research, universities, software code, newspapers, artworks, languages, public institutions and billions of digital interactions. It is the collective intellectual capital built over centuries by generations of individuals and societies. Modern AI systems are learning from this vast repository of human knowledge and transforming it into products and services that are expected to generate trillions of dollars in economic value.
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Human knowledge as an AI resource
As history has shown, every time humanity discovers a new resource capable of creating extraordinary wealth, governments eventually develop institutions to govern its use. The AI economy should prompt us to ask a similar question: if knowledge has become the raw material of AI, what should be the new social contract between AI companies and society? The answer may lie in one of the oldest lessons in economic governance first learned from the Mining Industry.
Mining has always represented one of the clearest examples of responsible resource governance. Companies invest enormous capital in exploration, technology, infrastructure and operational excellence to extract minerals from the earth. Yet governments also recognise that the minerals themselves are public resources. Consequently, mining companies pay royalties for the commercial use of those resources while complying with environmental safeguards, labour laws and community development obligations. These principles were never intended to punish business. Instead, they acknowledge that when private enterprise creates wealth from a shared national resource, society should also participate in the benefits.
This philosophy gradually expanded beyond Mining. As economies became more complex, governments recognised that businesses across every sector rely upon public goods—educated citizens, transport networks, digital infrastructure, legal institutions, natural resources and stable governance. The result was the evolution of modern corporate responsibility.
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Today, In India, companies across manufacturing, banking, pharmaceuticals, information technology, infrastructure and numerous other sectors contribute through taxation, regulatory compliance in the form of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). More recently, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) frameworks have further reinforced the principle that long-term business success is inseparable from long-term societal well-being.
Each stage represents an important milestone in the evolution of corporate responsibility. Mining introduced royalty systems. Industrialisation strengthened labour protections. Environmental concerns led to pollution control and sustainability frameworks. CSR institutionalised community
development. ESG expanded corporate accountability to investors and stakeholders alike. Unlike other Industries, AI’s primary raw material is not a physical resource. It is the Knowledge Commons—the collective body of knowledge, creativity and experience produced by humanity
over centuries.
Recognising knowledge as AI’s primary resource changes how we should think about the technology itself. It shifts the conversation from algorithms and computing power to a more fundamental question: what responsibilities arise when commercial value is created from humanity’s collective knowledge? It is an invitation to rethink corporate responsibility in the AI era.
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Existing AI governance largely focuses on privacy, safety, transparency and accountability. While these are essential, they do not address another emerging question: how should societies participate in the economic value created from their collective knowledge?
Around the world, governments have already begun recognising that AI requires governance beyond traditional regulation. Countries such as Norway and the U.S. state of Alaska have demonstrated how wealth generated from strategically important resources can be channelled into long-term public benefit through sovereign wealth and dividend models. Although these examples arise from different contexts, they reflect a common principle: societies create institutions that ensure strategically important resources contribute to public prosperity.
While countries are experimenting with different approaches to AI governance, no comprehensive framework yet addresses how the economic value created from humanity’s collective knowledge should be reinvested into society. This presents an opportunity for India to think beyond regulation and contribute a new governance perspective.
If the benefits of AI become increasingly concentrated while the knowledge ecosystem that sustains innovation remains underinvested, societies are likely to face widening economic disparities, unequal access to opportunity and growing public distrust in technological progress. Importantly, this is not simply a societal concern. Businesses themselves depend on a continuous supply of skilled talent, innovative universities, thriving start-ups and competitive MSMEs. Reinvesting in these foundations strengthens the ecosystem upon which future AI innovation
depends.
Rather than viewing AI solely as a technological revolution, policymakers could consider a Knowledge Dividend Framework—a governance mechanism through which a portion of the economic value created by large-scale commercial AI is reinvested in strengthening the knowledge ecosystem that makes such innovation possible.
A Knowledge Dividend should therefore be viewed as an investment in society’s long-term capacity to thrive in the AI economy rather than as an additional corporate obligation. Its purpose should be to expand AI literacy and digital infrastructure in the society which will help adopt AI in ways that improve productivity, solve public challenges and create inclusive economic growth. In doing so, the dividend would not merely redistribute wealth—it would expand the very ecosystem from which future innovation and economic value emerge.
The cost of inaction
If AI governance remains confined to regulation alone, we risk overlooking a more fundamental challenge—not the responsible use of AI, but the responsible distribution of the opportunities it creates. History suggests that societies which fail to evolve their institutions alongside technological change eventually face widening economic and social disparities. As AI becomes embedded across industries, the conversation can no longer remain confined to regulation alone; it must also consider how the benefits of this new knowledge economy are sustained and shared.
Perhaps the world’s most valuable resource was never coal, oil or even data. It has always been human knowledge. Artificial Intelligence has simply reminded us of its true value. The question before governments, businesses and society is therefore not merely how to govern a new technology, but how to govern humanity’s newest strategic resource—its collective knowledge.
Sandeep R Manakeshwar is mining professional and Certified Independent Director with experience in corporate affairs, CSR and ESG.