How people build, retain, and redeploy capability across education, entry into work, leadership, career transition, longer lives, and increasingly synthetic information environments. We study both individual agency and the institutional conditions under which people can continue to learn, decide, and contribute.
Two threads run through the pillar. The first is developmental: what happens to the pathways by which people acquire judgment when AI absorbs the routine tasks those pathways were built on, and how institutions support capability renewal at mid-career and beyond. The second is protective: how attention, verification, and decision quality hold up in environments engineered to fragment them.
Searchlight analysis on AI deskilling and the human-oversight skill gap is published; ongoing research examines the AI productivity paradox and how organizations distribute efficiency gains. First Research Briefs under this pillar are scheduled across Q4 2026. See the research agenda for current scoping.