The Enduring Value of Data Hinges on the Future Cost of Verification and Generation
oyhsu · x · 2026-08-08
The author argues that the relative enduring value of data in a specific domain is determined by the cheaper of the future cost of verification versus generation.
- Cost Breakdown: Math and code have cheap verification; annotation and creative assets have cheap generation. Conversely, drug discovery is expensive to verify, while robotics and real-time events are expensive to generate due to physical time constraints.
- Data Moats as Duration Bets: Implicit in any "data as a moat" thesis is a belief about how long the minimum of verification and generation costs will stay expensive. Over time, these cost structures are bound to change.
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