Research Discussionin AI & Human Knowledge

If attention recovers, what is the right unit of policy?

On the idea: Is attention the true scarce resource of our century?

Opening note

Working through the Chen & Tokoro meta-analysis in public. Methodological objections welcome and expected.

KTKenji TokoroOpened 2 Jul 2026

Participants: Kenji Tokoro, Lian Chen, Noémie Simard

Evidence on the table

No charts, documents or clips have been cited here yet.

LCLian Chen3 Jul 2026

The effect sizes are heterogeneous by design: lab interruption studies and diary studies are measuring different constructs. I would not pool them again. What survives disaggregation is that recovery is real but slower than product cycles assume.

NSNoémie Simard5 Jul 2026

A philosophical worry about the framing: 'resource' language makes rest instrumental — you rest in order to produce attention later. Some of what we lose to feeds is not input to anything.

Have it argued against before you post.