Transition readiness turns the vague worry that “AI is moving fast” into a precise question asked of each scenario: what capability must the ecology already have in place before the corresponding AI capability becomes ubiquitous? Contestability must precede automated gating; inference rights and data firebreaks must precede ambient sensing; jurisdiction limits and reversibility must precede deep delegation to governing systems; competence-preserving design must precede generational reliance on protection. Each names something that is far cheaper to build before the fact than to retrofit after.
The reframing matters because it changes what the race is against. The common framing is AI capability versus regulation, which arrives late and slowly; the framework’s framing is AI capability versus transition readiness, which includes law but also institutions, participant-side tools, developmental capacity, and preserved alternatives. It is the applied companion of commensurate pace: pace buys the time, and readiness is what that time is supposed to produce.