CONCEPT
Overshoot and Collapse
The trajectory of a system whose growth exceeds its carrying capacity without adequate balancing feedback — the pattern Meadows identified as the default outcome absent deliberate intervention.
Meadows identified three possible trajectories for a system in which growth presses against limits: overshoot and collapse; overshoot and oscillation; managed transition to sustainable equilibrium. Overshoot and collapse is the default outcome when the limits are invisible, the balancing loops are weak, or the response is too slow. The growth continues past the carrying capacity; the resource base is depleted past the point of recovery; output drops precipitously; recovery, if it occurs, is slow, painful, and incomplete. The AI ecosystem currently exhibits all three preconditions for this trajectory.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The first precondition is invisibility of limits. The AI ecosystem's measurement infrastructure captures output — which is rising — not the cognitive reserves from which valuable output is drawn, which are depleting. The dashboards show the ascending curve. The descending curve beneath the surface is not tracked and therefore not addressed.
The second precondition is weak balancing capacity. The dams exist in scattered, fragile, mostly informal implementations that the system's reinforcing