Bankless The Economics of AGI: Why Verification Is the New Scarcity w/ Christian Catalini
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Mar 26, 2026 
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Why AI Triggers Real Anxiety Without Guaranteeing Doom
- Christian Catalini argues AI anxiety is justified because change is arriving unusually fast, especially for people already working close to code.
- He still rejects pure doomerism, saying the durable challenge is retraining around tasks AI cannot yet absorb, not permanent economic collapse.
The Missing Junior Loop Hits First
- Entry-level work gets hit first because AI already substitutes for people who lack tacit knowledge, creating a missing junior loop across fields.
- Catalini says experts also train replacements by generating evals, labels, and digital traces that let labs codify their expertise.
Human Cognition Stopped Being the Main Bottleneck
- Catalini says institutions were built for a world where human cognition was scarce, but AI is removing that bottleneck.
- The new scarcity is humans checking whether machine output matches intent, preferences, and acceptable boundaries.