AI search research

Once AI makes expertise cheap to fake, what still signals competence? Enforceable promises, not badges

When AI produces convincing reports and proposals at near-zero cost, signals built on costly effort stop working — the paper's substitute is a verifiable promise backed by damages.

Framework: generative AI is modelled as compressing the discernible headroom between what machines produce cheaply and what buyers can distinguish; below a critical headroom no separating equilibrium in production-side signals exists.