[593] Abundance

In 1865 the economist William Stanley Jevons noticed that as steam engines became more efficient, Britain burned more coal, not less. Make something cheaper and we find more uses for it. It became known as the Jevons Paradox.

AI is making intelligence cheap. The optimistic reading is Jevons all over again: more of it means more work and new kinds of jobs, the way cash machines led to more bank branches and more tellers, not fewer. Things that were never worth doing suddenly are, and everything gets built, by anyone, for anything.

The other reading is that this time is different. When the machine can do the whole job, the money goes to the token budget rather than to salaries, and cheaper intelligence means fewer people, not more.