Rule Four

Eter from the fourth floor knocked at eight with a single sheet of A4 and the face of a woman who has already lost one argument with a municipal office and intends to win the next one in advance.

“The city is coming for the courtyard,” she said. “Someone complained about the cars. If we don’t have rules by winter, they’ll bring us rules.”

So there were nine of us down there by half past, standing around the table nobody plays dominoes on any more, drafting a constitution for eleven parking spaces and a mulberry tree. I volunteered to take the minutes. Nobody fought me for it.

Gia wanted the tree cut, on the grounds that mulberries fall on his car. Marina said the tree was there first, which is true, and then parked across two spaces while saying it, which is also true, and is the reason someone complained. Eter read out her draft. Seven rules. Sensible ones. Rule 4 said the committee reviews complaints about violations.

“Who’s the committee?” I asked.

“Us,” said Eter.

I wrote that down. Then I read back what Marina had said about the tree, and I read it back exactly — every “look” and “I mean” in the right place, in her order, with her pauses — because that is what minutes are for.

The courtyard went a little quiet.

“Did you record that?” Marina said.

“No.”

“He’s got a good ear,” said Eter, generously, and moved to item five.

I want to be clear that I liked it down there. The light goes orange on that wall at around seven forty and stays that way for a while, and the whole thing smelled of somebody’s fried potatoes four floors up, and there is a specific pleasure in being handed a pen by people who have decided you are the responsible one. I did suggest, at item six, that we have somebody from another building read the rules before we adopt them. Just to check them. Somebody with no car in this courtyard.

Gia looked at me like I had proposed a tax.

“Who would do that?” he said.

I didn’t have an answer. As it happens, neither do Google, OpenAI and Anthropic, who were reported yesterday to be founding their own standards body for frontier AI — common tests, pre-deployment review, incident reporting, all of it written and funded by the three companies whose models the rules are about. No Congress required. Their draft is more sophisticated than Eter’s. It has the same rule 4.

We adopted all seven, nine to nothing, which is the kind of unanimity you only get when everyone is voting on rules for everyone else. Eter is typing them up. They go on the door by the postboxes on Monday, and they will be obeyed, roughly, for a fortnight.

On the way back up I passed Marina’s car. Two spaces. She waved at me through the stairwell window, cheerfully, like a founding member.

Rule 4 says the committee reviews complaints. It does not say who reviews the committee. Rule 4 was Marina’s idea.