Cognitive Value Migration (CVM) - A Framework for the Revaluation and Redistribution of Cognitive Capabilities in the AI Era

Abstract Artificial intelligence (AI) is reducing the marginal cost of knowledge acquisition, cognitive production, and task execution. These changes affect not only how cognitive activities are performed, but also the relative scarcity and substitutability of the capabilities involved. However, declining production costs do not necessarily translate into equivalent changes in economic value or the distribution of the value generated. This note introduces Cognitive Value Migration (CVM) as a theoretical construct and analytical framework for examining how AI-induced changes in cognitive production costs reshape the relative scarcity and substitutability of cognitive capabilities, and how these changes influence value creation and value capture across individuals, organizations, and economic actors. CVM does not assume that cognitive value necessarily migrates from lower-order to higher-order capabilities, nor that human capabilities will retain value simply because AI has not yet automated them. Instead, it treats cognitive value as dynamically reconfigured through changes in production costs, capability scarcity, substitution, augmentation, recombination, and value capture mechanisms. The minimum claim of CVM is that the economic and organizational value of cognitive capabilities cannot be adequately understood by examining task automation or productivity gains alone. It also requires examining how the changing economics of cognitive production affect the relative value of capabilities and the distribution of the resulting value. CVM is conceptually related to the broader research agenda of the Co-evolutionary Science of Intelligence (CESI), but its formal position within CESI's scientific architecture remains open to further theoretical clarification. It does not constitute an additional scientific pillar or redefine any existing CESI component.