The Conversation So Far
Two posts ago, I asked an innocent question: how do you test AI-generated code?
That question metastasized. It led through epistemology (what does AI actually know?), through cognitive science (what does it mean to have knowledge vs. process information?), and into a surprising terminus: the five-layer framework. A map of what AI can replace, what it can approach, and what it structurally cannot reach — because some knowledge is earned through lived time, not compressible into tokens.
That post was the epistemology of the AI era. It answered: what is the difference between human and machine knowledge?
Last post, I turned the map sideways. If the layers describe what AI can and cannot do, then they also describe where the market is going. Layer 1 is a blood-red ocean (application knowledge, commoditizing now). Layer 4 and Layer 0a are deep blue (meta-cognitive creation, embodied grounding — structurally irreplaceable).
