How to ensure that AI disruption doesn’t leave workers behind

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Policymakers and business leaders have important roles to play in supporting U.S. citizens through the AI transition.

Jay Clayton, a former U.S. attorney, is now—in the president’s words—America’s “AI czar.” More formally, he is head of the White House’s new Super Intelligence Force. In that role, Clayton is responsible for developing “plans for responding to SI-enabled threats” to America.

That remit is a fine starting place for Washington, which, until very recently, been concerningly disengaged with regulating or overseeing the artificial-intelligence industry at all. Attending to concerns around AI threats to privacy, national security, and perhaps even civilization are of critical importance.

But there must be just as much attention placed on addressing the more immediate transition into the AI era—things like retraining workers, making sure displaced workers are supported, and ensuring government and private businesses have a way to work together through big economic changes. A failure to meaningfully address these shorter-run, more mundane concerns may mean we never reach the promised AI era at all.

Our economy is in the early stage of a large-scale transition that will disrupt and eliminate some jobs, create new ones, and necessitate skill shifts in others. We have experienced such transitions before, but they took place over decades. It is reasonable to believe this one will be much faster.

Therein lies the rub. Today’s business, economic, and monetary policy discussions around AI center on the durability of a tech-heavy stock market, expected productivity gains, and effects on wages and the labor market, all of which are important. But no one knows exactly how or when AI will create these huge shifts in our economy. Given this, a prudent policy stance is one of scenario planning and risk management, proactively taking steps that are flexible to different forms of disruption.

Those steps should be centered on a principle of promoting maximum participation—that is, individuals’ connection to meaningful participation in the economy.

Policymakers should invest in institutions that…

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