From Overfields to Field Networks: A Governance-First Architecture for AGI/ASI

This paper introduces Field Networks, a multi-layer communication fabric in which epistemic fields coordinate through natural-language protocols governed by gauges, corridors, receipts, and witnessed order. Building on Overfields as the local governance layer for composition and decision-making, Field Networks extend those obligations across organizations and providers. Components — models, agentic workflows, search routines, and data services — enter the network as field-capsules that state their audience, declare bounds for safe motion, and supply one-step, replayable proofs. The protocol specifies how couplings are proposed and earned, how stop-loss and rollback propagate without drama, and how portable acceptance is maintained when substrates change. We compare composition with monolithic and orchestration-only approaches, arguing that governed composition better earns generality while remaining hybrid-aware. The result is an architecture in which competence is a governed property: coherent across fields, transportable across venues, provable within actionable windows, and portable across providers. We outline minimal operators, message types, and interoperability profiles for public, regulatory, and executive audiences, together with an evaluation plan that treats benchmarks as venues and requires cross-provider replay before promotion.