SAN FRANCISCO — A group of hundreds of economists, computer scientists, and technology executives is calling on institutions to take urgent action in response to the potential economic upheaval that artificial intelligence could bring, including the threat of widespread job losses.
The open letter, released Monday and organized by Stanford University’s digital economy lab, was signed by more than 200 economists and AI researchers — including 16 Nobel Prize winners — as well as executives from major tech firms such as Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI.
The brief, four-sentence letter warns that AI’s growth could be dramatic. “AI may become radically more powerful over the next 10 years,” the letter states. “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.”
The signatories are calling on leaders to “build the incentives, guardrails, and institutions needed to steer AI in a direction that complements humans and benefits society.”
Among those who signed was Yoshua Bengio, a computer scientist and pioneer in AI research, who issued a separate statement saying it is “highly plausible that AI will drastically transform our economies” given how rapidly the technology is advancing.
Bengio, a professor at the University of Montreal, added: “We must be intentional and make collective, democratic choices, rather than letting market forces play out and risking leaving most citizens behind.”
