The amplification metaphor at the heart of You On AI — AI as the most powerful amplifier ever built — conceals a distributional paradox that Myrdal's framework exposes with precision. An amplifier multiplies the signal it receives. If the signal is strong (education, infrastructure, institutional support, economic stability), amplification produces extraordinary output. If the signal is weak or absent, amplification produces nothing — or worse, amplifies the frictions and constraints the absent prerequisites would have buffered. The amplifier is not neutral in its distributional effects; it systematically rewards those who arrive at it with the prerequisites already in place. The question "are you worth amplifying?" addresses an audience that already possesses the answer.
This is the specific form cumulative causation takes in the AI economy. Advantages compound not through market forces alone but through the amplifying action of the tools themselves. The developer in San Francisco with strong education, reliable infrastructure, abundant capital, and institutional