Our political fighting is actually making AI worse because we can't agree on the basic data it needs to learn.
March 20, 2026
Original Paper
Cognitive Capital and AI: Who Benefits, How Fast, and How Broadly 
SSRN · 6340878
The Takeaway
We treat AI productivity as a matter of software and hardware, but this framework shows that 'Cognitive Capital'—the ability to share and trust information—is the real driver of tech ROI. High polarization makes this capital 'evaporate,' trapping organizations in 'fragmentation traps' where even the best AI cannot lift productivity.
From the abstract
Economic growth is often explained by physical and human capital, yet the biggest gains from AI arrive only when organizations build the cognitive systems that let new tools actually work. We call this Cognitive Capital : the data architecture, domain knowledge, interoperable workflows, governance, and institutional learning that turn AI and information into reliable decisions and actions. We develop a task-based framework showing how Cognitive Capital reshapes which tasks expand, how labor is r