CONCEPT
Metabolic Rate of Organizations
The rate at which an organization converts inputs into outputs — its energetic throughput — which AI has raised dramatically without, in most cases, changing the network architecture that determines the lifespan consequences of that rate.
In biological systems, metabolic rate is the speed at which an organism converts food and oxygen into the energy that powers its activities. In organizations, West's framework identifies an analogous quantity: the rate at which inputs (capital, information, human cognitive effort) are converted into outputs (products, services, decisions, revenue). The Trivandrum training that Edo Segal describes in You On AI represents a metabolic phase transition — the energy cost of converting an idea into a working artifact dropped by an order of magnitude in the space of a week. West's framework predicts what happens when metabolic rate changes without corresponding changes in network topology: the system accelerates through its developmental phases, reaching plateau and mortality on a compressed timeline. The mouse with the fastest heart does not outlive the elephant; it simply experiences more heartbeats per year, for fewer years. This is the metabolic reading of the Software Death Cross.
