DISCONTINUITY

RESEARCH

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01 — THE DISCONTINUITY

Intelligence is being commoditized. Every foundation model approaches frontier capability, and the gap between the best model and the tenth-best model is narrowing each quarter. This is not an incremental technology upgrade - it is a structural discontinuity: the point where the assumptions underlying most institutions, markets, and power structures stop holding.

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“Most of the modern economy is built on information asymmetry. As intelligence approaches zero marginal cost, these moats erode structurally, not cyclically.”

Professional services, financial intermediation, education, insurance, intelligence - these industries exist because knowledge was expensive to acquire and hard to distribute. As intelligence approaches zero marginal cost, these moats erode structurally, not cyclically.

The result is a K-shaped divergence. Those who understand the discontinuity and build for it will compound on one trajectory. Those who treat it as a productivity tool for existing workflows will discover their workflows were the product being replaced. The divergence is already visible. It will define the next decade.

02 — WHAT BECOMES SCARCE

When intelligence is abundant, three things remain scarce:

01SCARCITY 01

Context

Intelligence without domain knowledge is generic. The difference between a model that can reason and one that can act is context: skills, processes, institutional memory, domain expertise. A degree was always bundled context. Agents will need to acquire theirs too - and that creates a market.

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02SCARCITY 02

Trust

When economic actors are increasingly non-human, institutional trust mechanisms - reputation, regulation, relationships - don't transfer. Cryptographic verification, atomic and intermediary-free, becomes the foundation for commerce between agents, and between agents and humans.

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03SCARCITY 03

Identity

Persistent reputation across interactions, platforms, and time. The social infrastructure for a world where AI-native entities operate alongside humans. Without durable identity, there is no accountability. Without accountability, economic relationships can't form.

03 — THE STACK

Independent projects - each a bet on what's scarce when intelligence is abundant.