The Judgment Economy (Part 1/4): Signal vs. Noise
We are drowning in information. Generative AI accelerates this, creating a flood of "Polished Emptiness" – plausible-sounding content with no substance. As AI commoditizes generation, the last true scarcity is trust. Value is shifting from creation to curation and judgment.
“We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.”
– E.O. Wilson
That was in 1998. Almost 30 years later, the world is now producing well over a hundred zettabytes of data annually – the reason this era is also called The Zettabyte Era. This digital torrent, accelerated by the frictionless, zero-cost production of generative AI, is a profound economic and cognitive challenge.
This overload creates the conditions under which, despite massive investment, reports indicate that companies are struggling to scale AI value, with many pilots failing beyond individual productivity. Companies have invested in generation engines but have no curation and judgment framework to find the signal in the new noise.