AI Inverts Scarcity: Judgment Now Abundant, Legitimacy Scarce

An opinion article published on arXiv suggests that the advent of AI has transformed the landscape of judgment scarcity. Initially, AI was perceived as reducing prediction expenses while judgment remained limited. However, the author argues that AI now generates seemingly competent judgment—such as selection, ranking, attribution, and certification—at an almost negligible cost. This transformation has led to a scarcity of four key complements: verified signals, legitimacy, genuine provenance, and the community's acceptance of delegated cognition. Given that judgment underpins institutions, those designed to create legitimate judgment—like courts, journals, licensing organizations, and legislatures—now find themselves competing with AI for similar roles. The article examines this trend across various domains, including scientific institutions and democratic legitimacy.