AI has made knowledge—the ability to produce information—cheap and accessible. The new currency is wisdom: knowing what matters, where to focus, and how to find purpose. This shifts the focus of work and education from learning facts to developing critical thinking, empathy, and judgment.

The current AI shift mirrors the invention of the printing press. Just as the press made reading/writing accessible beyond a small scribe class, AI is making software creation accessible to everyone, potentially unlocking a new "Renaissance" of innovation.

Emad Mostaque argues that as AI makes intelligence abundant (e.g., free expert medical advice), our economic system, which is built on scarcity, interprets the resulting job displacement and disruption as poverty, even if overall well-being improves.

The cost for a given level of AI capability has decreased by a factor of 100 in just one year. This radical deflation in the price of intelligence requires a complete rethinking of business models and future strategies, as intelligence becomes an abundant, cheap commodity.

The cost of AI, priced in "tokens by the drink," is falling dramatically. All inputs are on a downward cost curve, leading to a hyper-deflationary effect on the price of intelligence. This, in turn, fuels massive demand elasticity as more use cases become economically viable.

If AI makes intelligence cheap and universally available, its economic value may collapse. This theory suggests that selling raw AI models could become a low-margin, utility-like business. Profitability will depend on building moats through specialized applications or regulatory capture, not on selling base intelligence.

The internet leveled the playing field by making information accessible. AI will do the same for intelligence, making expertise a commodity. The new human differentiator will be the creativity and ability to define and solve novel, previously un-articulable problems.

For the first time, a disruptive technology's most advanced capabilities are available to the public from day one via consumer apps. An individual with a smartphone has access to the same state-of-the-art AI as a top VC or Fortune 500 CEO, making it the most democratic technology in history.

Capitalism values scarcity. AI's core disruption is not just automating tasks, but making human-like intellectual labor so abundant that its market value approaches zero. This breaks the fundamental economic loop of trading scarce labor for wages.