The thesis assumes that intelligence is becoming a commodity, but Gödel’s incompleteness theorem suggests that no sufficiently complex system can fully understand or verify itself from within. Intelligence is not merely the production of outputs; it includes the ability to transcend existing frameworks, redefine problems, and generate new abstractions. If AI mostly automates cognition within existing systems, then what is becoming abundant is computation, not intelligence itself. Consequently, the middle layer may not disappear but continually regenerate around higher-order forms of judgment and meaning. Scarcity may not migrate permanently to accountability and execution; it may recursively reappear in new cognitive domains. Rather than a stable barbell, the economy may remain a moving hierarchy where each wave of automation creates new levels of scarce human insight.
Thank you — a genuinely interesting point. Here's what I think:
Will the middle layer disappear? No. The essay argues it compresses. The same work needing fewer humans, not that it vanishes.
Will new cognitive domains emerge? Almost certainly, and the essay says as much. But will they emerge at a scale and pace that can re-absorb the displaced? I doubt it.
Each new domain is a narrower, more rarefied frontier, and each is itself exposed to AI absorption in due course.
On Gödel, I'd be cautious leaning on it. Incompleteness is about a system proving things about itself, it says nothing about whether that system can do an analyst's or a lawyer's job cheaply. Displacement doesn't require self-verification. Whatever practical ceiling one reads into it keeps receding as capability improves.
The pace and nature of new domain creation is genuinely open. Which is why I think it's a more interesting question than 'will jobs disappear.' Thanks for pushing on it.
I agree that displacement doesn’t require self-verification, so Gödel isn’t an argument against automation. My point was narrower: if minds are systems attempting to model themselves, incompleteness may remain philosophically relevant even as practical capability grows.
On the economics, I’m less convinced that new domains must be narrower or incapable of absorbing labor. Historically, productivity gains have repeatedly created demand in places that were difficult to foresee beforehand. The stronger claim isn’t that jobs will disappear, but that this time the mechanism of adaptation breaks. That’s possible, but I don’t think it’s established yet.
The thesis assumes that intelligence is becoming a commodity, but Gödel’s incompleteness theorem suggests that no sufficiently complex system can fully understand or verify itself from within. Intelligence is not merely the production of outputs; it includes the ability to transcend existing frameworks, redefine problems, and generate new abstractions. If AI mostly automates cognition within existing systems, then what is becoming abundant is computation, not intelligence itself. Consequently, the middle layer may not disappear but continually regenerate around higher-order forms of judgment and meaning. Scarcity may not migrate permanently to accountability and execution; it may recursively reappear in new cognitive domains. Rather than a stable barbell, the economy may remain a moving hierarchy where each wave of automation creates new levels of scarce human insight.
Thank you — a genuinely interesting point. Here's what I think:
Will the middle layer disappear? No. The essay argues it compresses. The same work needing fewer humans, not that it vanishes.
Will new cognitive domains emerge? Almost certainly, and the essay says as much. But will they emerge at a scale and pace that can re-absorb the displaced? I doubt it.
Each new domain is a narrower, more rarefied frontier, and each is itself exposed to AI absorption in due course.
On Gödel, I'd be cautious leaning on it. Incompleteness is about a system proving things about itself, it says nothing about whether that system can do an analyst's or a lawyer's job cheaply. Displacement doesn't require self-verification. Whatever practical ceiling one reads into it keeps receding as capability improves.
The pace and nature of new domain creation is genuinely open. Which is why I think it's a more interesting question than 'will jobs disappear.' Thanks for pushing on it.
I agree that displacement doesn’t require self-verification, so Gödel isn’t an argument against automation. My point was narrower: if minds are systems attempting to model themselves, incompleteness may remain philosophically relevant even as practical capability grows.
On the economics, I’m less convinced that new domains must be narrower or incapable of absorbing labor. Historically, productivity gains have repeatedly created demand in places that were difficult to foresee beforehand. The stronger claim isn’t that jobs will disappear, but that this time the mechanism of adaptation breaks. That’s possible, but I don’t think it’s established yet.