More than 200 top economists, executives, and researchers — including over a dozen Nobel Prize winners — have signed a letter warning about AI’s potential threat to jobs.
The 88-word-long letter, titled “We Must Act Now,” says that AI could become “radically more powerful” in the coming decade, and argues that policymakers worldwide need to do more to build guardrails for the technology or risk “large-scale job displacement.”
Signatories include former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, and Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz, Daron Acemoglu, and Simon Johnson.
Google AI lead Jeff Dean, Anthropic cofounder Jack Clark, and OpenAI finance boss Sarah Friar also signed.
Read the full text of the letter, organized by the Stanford Digital Economy Lab and subtitled “A Statement on AI’s Transformation of the Economy,” here:
AI may become radically more powerful over the next 10 years.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.Economists, policymakers and technology leaders must act now to understand the economics of transformative AI and to build the incentives, guardrails, and institutions needed to steer AI in a direction that complements humans and benefits society.
The warning comes as economists and business leaders continue to debate how quickly AI could reshape the labor market.
While generative AI has, to some extent, automated parts of white-collar jobs such as coding, customer service, marketing, and research, there is little evidence so far of widespread job losses directly caused by the technology.
Several recent studies suggest AI is changing hiring before it changes employment. Research from Harvard Business School, INSEAD, and the University of Toronto found venture-backed startups are hiring fewer entry-level workers while recruiting more experienced employees, reflecting a shift toward smaller, AI-assisted teams.
Other economists argue that AI’s impact is likely to unfold gradually.
Researchers at the International Monetary Fund recently found that AI adoption remains concentrated among a minority of workers, suggesting the technology has yet to spread widely enough to produce broad labor-market disruption.
Still, some prominent AI researchers and executives have warned that the effects could intensify rapidly as AI systems become more capable.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has predicted AI could eliminate up to half of entry-level white-collar jobs within five years, while others have said the technology is more likely to transform jobs than replace them outright, boosting productivity by automating routine tasks while creating demand for new skills.
