Discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) gained a new chapter earlier this week. This time, however, from a perspective that differs from the billions that these two words have generated in the capital markets, the world of venture capital, and corporate investments.
A group of over 200 researchers and economists released a statement on Monday, July 13, urging governments and technology leaders to urgently create policies and bodies to address the economic impact and opportunities of AI.
Titled “We need to act now,” the statement draws parallels with the Industrial Revolution and warns that AI can bring about radical transformations faster than any other technology. And that action must be taken just as quickly to respond to these changes.
“AI could become radically more powerful in the next ten years,” one passage highlights. The document also emphasizes that the technology “may bring risks, including large-scale job displacement, as well as opportunities, such as significant gains in living standards.”
The names behind the statement lend weight to what is being said. The group includes, for example, 15 Nobel laureates, among them Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who won the economics prize in 2024.
The list of signatories also includes names such as Eric Schmidt , former CEO of Google; Vinod Khosla , founder of Khosla Ventures; and Jack Clark, co-founder of Anthropic , one of the main symbols of the rise of AI, alongside OpenAI , whose CFO, Sarah Friar, also signed the document.
“Steam, electricity, and computers gave societies decades to adapt. AI may only give us a few years. We cannot improvise our strategy and institutions in the midst of transformation. Waiting for certainty means arriving too late,” Anton Korinek told Reuters .
Korinek is a professor in the Economics department at the University of Virginia and, since March of this year, has been a member of the Anthropic economic research team. He is one of the originators of the declaration, along with fellow economists Erik Brynjolfsson, Ajay Agrawal, and Tom Cunningham.
“There has been a remarkable shift in the profession,” Brynjolfsson of Stanford University told The New York Times . He told the American newspaper that his goal is to get economists and lawmakers to take the disruptive potential of AI more seriously.
“I still see a large gap there, a huge discrepancy, and I’m worried that we are not prepared for the tsunami that is coming,” Brynjolfsson noted.
As part of this scenario, the document highlights that unemployment insurance systems and social assistance programs are not prepared to handle the volume of professionals who will lose their jobs in the wake of this "tsunami".
According to Brynjolfsson, one of the focuses for economists should be the development of better metrics to measure the spread and impact of AI. Conversely, the document does not offer any recommendations for specific policies or measures to be implemented in this context.
