AI is making effort a less reliable proxy for economic reward.

We tend to believe that the more effort it takes to create something, the more it should be worth.

But market prices are set at the margin; by what the next unit is worth to the buyer and not by the effort behind it. When an AI-native professional delivers 10x the output, this person's moral merit hasn't multiplied by ten. And when AI makes other domains less lucrative, that's a shift in scarcity and not a verdict on whether those contributions matter.

We’ll have to navigate this without either resenting the gains or devaluing the work that becomes less rewarded. The hardest part is figuring out what we actually value.