The Arc
Essay 5 min read

The Economics of Attention in the Age of AI

How AI changes the scarcity of content and the value of human curation.

TL;DR

  • AI makes content generation effectively free.
  • The new scarcity is attention and curation.
  • Human judgment becomes a premium product.

Context

This essay explores the shifting landscape of digital content creation. As AI models become ubiquitous, the value of producing text approaches zero, while the value of filtering and contextualizing it skyrockets.

The Shift

Historically, creating high-quality content was a bottleneck…

The New Scarcity

Now that anyone can generate a 5,000-word essay in seconds…

The Value of Curation

This is where human curation comes in…

The Arc Note

我學到的 1 條規則

Focus on filtering and contextualizing, not just creating.

我接下來要做的 1 個動作

Start a curated newsletter highlighting the best human-written essays.

我仍不確定的 1 件事

How long it will take for AI to become better curators than humans.