Hundreds of economists say in an open letter that institutions “must act now” to address how artificial intelligence could transform the economy and could put many people out of work.
The statement released Monday was signed by top economists, along with computer scientists and some executives at tech companies including Anthropic, Google and OpenAI.
“AI may become radically more powerful over the next 10 years,” says the letter organized by Stanford University’s digital economy lab. “This could drive an unprecedented transformation of our economy, larger than the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding over a vastly shorter time frame. It could bring risks, including large-scale job displacement, as well as opportunities such as major gains in living standards.”
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The letter, which has only four sentences, says leaders must “build the incentives, guardrails, and institutions needed to steer AI in a direction that complements humans and benefits society.”
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The Stanford lab says the letter has so far been signed by more than 200 economists and AI researchers, including 16 winners of a Nobel Prize.
Computer scientist and AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio was among the signatories and said in a separate statement that based on the trajectory of AI development, “it is highly plausible that AI will drastically transform our economies.”
“We must be intentional and make collective, democratic choices, rather than letting market forces play out and risking leaving most citizens behind,” wrote Bengio, a professor at the University of Montreal.
could transform the economy and could put many people out of work. THIS IS WHAT THE LIBERALS HAVE BEEN TRYING TO DO FOR YEARS , PUT EVERYONE OUT OF WORK. BREAK UNIONS AND HAVE NO OME TO GIVE PAYCHECK TO. THEY CAN SAVEALL THERE MONEY AND STILL GET THE JOBS DONE. SAME AS MOST EMPLOYERS, THEY LOVE THIS !!! BIG FACTS
Ban the use of AI for surveillance and profiling, and ban the data centres connected to it. It has gone way too far and I am personally done with giving up privacy for “security”.
BAN ALL AI DATA CENTERS!!
DON’T EVER PUT YOUR TRUST IN THEM!
WHATEVER YOU SEE OR HEAR OF HOW WONDERFUL THEY’LL BE, WILL BE A DOWNRIGHT LIE!!
IT’S ALL FOR THE RICH AND GREEDY!!
The same type of people were warning the public that a horrible transformation was going to take place when automobiles replaced horses. Jobs would be lost, carnage on the streets, horses would disappear off the Earth.
AI will become much more powerful and perhaps sapient. But politicians and society will continue to put their head in the sand until it becomes a crisis. That crisis is when mass unemployment causes mass uprisings. Roosevelt and WW2 saved capitalism. Who is going to save it the second time?
The sky is falling, the sky is falling!
Can’t wait for the Liberals to blame AI for all of the last 11 years of incompetent management of the economy and the hundreds of billions of dollars thrown away as well as the doubling of the national debt. After all they DID try to blame Harper who hasn’t been in office for over a decade and they tried to blame the current Conservative opposition party. Liberal’s will blame anyone and anything for the destruction of Canada but themselves, where the real blame lies.
North Americans prefer dependency
Its what they vote for and what they.fight to defend