What does this research mean for the field?

Generative AI shifts the economic bottleneck of knowledge production from generating candidate outputs to validating them, making human expertise and practitioners epistemically central. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.METHODOLOGICAL. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.ESTABLISHES_NEW_DIRECTION.

What question did this study set out to answer?

To formalize the shifting economics of human expertise under generative artificial intelligence, establishing how candidate abundance drives scarcity toward output validation.

September 8, 2026Open Access

The Economics of Expertise in the Age of Generative AI: From Constrained Scientific Creativity to Epistemic Scarcity (Final Journal Manuscript v1.0)

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To formalize the shifting economics of human expertise under generative artificial intelligence, establishing how candidate abundance drives scarcity toward output validation.
Formulated a mathematical economics model analyzing candidate sets, validation capacity, backlog accumulation, steady-state equilibria, and bottleneck revaluation.
Derived 30 formalized equations outlining epistemic shifts and articulated testable hypotheses (H1–H9) with explicit falsification conditions.
Established a Core Epistemic Registration framework that non-collapsibly distinguishes experience-based experts, interactional experts, and generative AI systems.
Demonstrates that generative artificial intelligence creates an overabundance of candidate outputs, permanently shifting structural economic value toward scarce empirical validation capacity.
Identifies human expertise as a context-dependent state rather than a deterministic ladder, positioning experience-based practitioners as central epistemic bottlenecks.

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Implication

Theoretical analysis reveals how generative AI shifts epistemic scarcity from generation to validation, indicating practitioners will become primary economic bottlenecks.

Cite This Study

Yaoharee Lahtee (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a9fd7b758e84d0ff5b46a34 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22636988

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Implication

Theoretical analysis reveals how generative AI shifts epistemic scarcity from generation to validation, indicating practitioners will become primary economic bottlenecks.

The Economics of Expertise in the Age of Generative AI: From Constrained Scientific Creativity to Epistemic Scarcity (Final Journal Manuscript v1.0)

Key Points

Discussion

Implication

Cite This Study

The Economics of Expertise in the Age of Generative AI: From Constrained Scientific Creativity to Epistemic Scarcity (Final Journal Manuscript v1.0)

Key Points

Discussion

Implication

Cite This Study

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