Allocation economy

Garden · not yet reviewed Emerging: new and still settling Widely discussed since 2024-01

Dan Shipper's forecast that as AI does more of the making, people will be valued less for what they know and more for how well they direct models: a clear goal, saying exactly what is wrong with a result, choosing the right model and knowing when to step in.

Also called: model manager · managing models · knowledge economy to allocation economy

Connections

Understand first

Ideas this one builds on.

• Steering (garden)

Related

Often used together or easily confused.

• Model choice (garden)
• Human in the loop (garden)

Resources that teach it

• The Knowledge Economy Is Over. Welcome to the Allocation Economy. (garden)
• Management as AI superpower (garden)

Competency

• Steer
• Frame the outcome
• Check the result

Find allocation economy on the commons map ↗

You may know it from

• management moving from doing the work to managing the people who do it A new manager's output becomes what the team produces, so her skill becomes choosing who does what, briefing them and judging the result.

In plain words

In January 2024, Dan Shipper of Every argued that the knowledge economy is giving way to an allocation economy. When a model can draft the memo, write the code or summarise the research, knowing how to do those things by hand pays less. Deciding what to ask for, which model to give it to, and whether the result is good enough pays more.

Shipper calls the person doing this a model manager and names four skills: a clear picture of the goal, the taste to say precisely what is wrong with a draft, a sense of which model suits which job, and judgement about when to get into the details and when to leave the work alone.

This is a forecast, not a study. Use it as a reason to practise directing and checking.

Example

A communications lead used to write every press release herself. Now she writes a short brief, compares drafts from two models, and sends one back with “the director’s quote sounds invented, use the real one I attached”.

How it connects

• Builds on steering: directing work well is the skill the idea puts at the centre.
• Model choice is one of the four model-manager skills.
• Knowing when to step in is human in the loop.

Try it

List three tasks you did this week. For each, write the one sentence you would need to brief an AI well. Notice which brief was hardest to write: that task probably needs your judgement most.

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Read this card as plain Markdown: /concepts/con-allocation-economy.md. Know a parallel from your own field, or a product that implements this? Add it.