Those Inside a Pole Do Not See the Structure of the Poles
The transition described in this series, from finance as a system that uses technology to cognitive techno-finance as a self-producing system, is not visible from within any single component. It becomes visible only from their intersection.
The financial professional sees AI as a tool that improves processes, increases efficiency, accelerates computation, and reduces costs. They do not perceive the concentration of allocative power at the foundational layer, because that concentration occurs outside their field. Their position inside the financial system offers local precision and structural blindness.
The model specialist sees finance as an application context, observes use cases, accuracy requirements, and regulatory constraints. They do not see the structure of power that determines which models are developed, for what purpose, and with what distribution of effects. Their position inside the technological system provides instrumental competence and systemic blindness.
This reciprocal blindness is a consequence of specialisation, which itself results from the complexity of the systems involved. As a system becomes more complex, it demands greater specialisation to function, and specialisation produces blind spots regarding everything outside its domain. Complexity generates the blindness that prevents it from being seen.
Bourdieu (1984) showed how each social field produces its own habitus, dispositions that make the arbitrary appear natural and the structural appear invisible. The financial operator does not see the structure of allocative power because they inhabit it as the natural order of things. The technician does not see the political implications of their models because technical neutrality is the habitus of their field.
The epistemically privileged position is neither that of the financial operator, the technician, nor the regulator. It belongs to those who occupy the intersection between these fields without being captured by any of them. This position is often uncomfortable, as it offers no immediate recognition within a community of peers. Yet it provides the ability to see the structure of the poles from outside each of them.
This is the epistemic position from which this series of essays has been written. Its critique arises from the intersection of the systems it describes, and its credibility rests on that position.