Part VI: Where Returns Flow

Value migrates to bottlenecks. When cognitive capability becomes abundant and cheap, what remains scarce captures the margin. The bottlenecks are not algorithmic; they are physical, institutional, and legal: the capacity to convert electricity into computation at scale, the permission to act in regulated domains, the ability to attach enforceable consequence to decisions, the infrastructure that lets agents coordinate across time.

Three layers crystallize. At the base, a vast sea of commoditizing capability where competition erodes margins and weights become interchangeable. Above it, a thin membrane of authorization where human judgment and institutional permission remain required. And at the apex, concentrated positions where physical infrastructure and regulatory franchise create durable advantage. Cognition commoditizes; actuation concentrates; value flows to the interface between them.