The Orientation Economy Hypothesis

This paper develops the Orientation Economy Hypothesis. It asks what becomes economically scarce when cognitive production itself becomes increasingly scalable through generative artificial intelligence. The paper distinguishes between Orientation Load (L), defined as the relevance-ordering performance required for the productive use of available cognitive capacity, and Effective Orientation Capacity (K), defined as the capacity actually available to perform this function. Effective Orientation Capacity may reside in humans, AI systems, organisations, institutions, hybrid human-AI systems, or their interaction. The central proposition is a relative-scalability problem. AI-enabled cognitive industrialisation can alter both Orientation Load and Effective Orientation Capacity. AI may expand and restructure accessible possibility spaces, increase recursive problem reframing, and thereby increase requirements for relevance ordering. At the same time, AI may filter possibilities, improve prioritisation, support reframing, and expand Effective Orientation Capacity. An orientation constraint therefore arises only where the capacity for adequate relevance ordering becomes insufficient relative to the relevance-ordering performance required for the productive use of scalable cognitive capacity. The paper does not equate such scarcity with an Orientation Economy. Relative scarcity must first become a binding productive constraint and generate systematic effects on economic allocation and relative value. An Orientation Economy is therefore defined as a conditional economic configuration in which limitations in adequate relevance ordering become recurrent binding constraints on the productive use of scalable cognitive capacity and thereby systematically affect the allocation and relative economic value of resources, capabilities, or institutional arrangements. The hypothesis is bounded against existing research on judgment, alignment, verification, relevance realization, cognitive mediation, and problem-solution co-evolution. It does not predict the necessary emergence of an Orientation Economy, but formulates the conditions under which such a constraint could arise and develops an open research agenda concerning its scalability, structure, economic effects, and human, artificial, or emergent locus.