Throughout modern economic history, human intelligence has been the scarce input. Capital was abundant (or at least replicable). Natural resources were finite, but replaceable. Technology improved slowly enough for humans to adapt. Intelligence—the capacity to analyze, decide, create, persuade, and coordinate—was what could not be replicated on a large scale.

Human intelligence derived its inherent value from its scarcity. All the institutions of our economy, from the labor market to the mortgage market and the tax code, were designed for a world in which that premise held true.

We are now witnessing the erosion of that premium. Artificial intelligence has become a competent and rapidly improving substitute for human intelligence in an ever-expanding range of tasks. The financial system, optimized for decades for a world with scarce human minds, is being revalued. This revaluation is painful, messy, and far from complete.

But revaluation is not the same as collapse.

The economy can find a new equilibrium. Achieving this is one of the few tasks that only humans can accomplish. We need to do it right.

This is the first time in history that the economy's most productive asset has generated fewer jobs, not more. No framework fits, because none were designed for a world where a scarce input has become abundant. Therefore, we have to create new frameworks. The only question that matters is whether we build them in time.